The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,000 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,000 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.
Our affiliated professors are based at over 120 universities and conduct randomized evaluations around the world to design, evaluate, and improve programs and policies aimed at reducing poverty. They set their own research agendas, raise funds to support their evaluations, and work with J-PAL staff on research, policy outreach, and training.
Our research, policy, and training work is fundamentally better when it is informed by a broad range of perspectives.
Ghana, like most other developing countries, is characterized by low state-capacity for tax collection. The lack of tax revenues for public good provision is felt especially keenly at the local government level, where revenue collections and hence public good expenditures are minimal. In this study, we propose to conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial of a new technology that seeks to help local governments in Ghana increase property tax revenues. The main treatment group of households will receive visits by revenue collectors using the new technology, which replaces cash payment of taxes with electronic billing and payment. Two further, more exploratory, treatment groups will also receive presentations by national service personnel explaining the costs of noncompliance under the new technology or the benefits of compliance. The pilot will provide critical inputs to inform the design of a larger full-scale RCT including refining implementation details, measurement instruments, plausible effect sizes, and power calculations.