News

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of pay for performance contracts on teachers’ qualities, effort, and student learning in Rwanda. Pay for performance improved teacher effort, particularly their presence in classroom and their pedagogical effectiveness, and raised...

Researchers partnered with a water company in Zambia to evaluate whether improved information and incentives can help households manage their water usage. They found that targeting incentives to higher household water consumers might be an effective way to reduce water consumption.

researchers are evaluating the impact of CBFM on farmers’ agricultural productivity, adoption of modern technology, rural livelihoods, and forest conservation.

Researchers partnered with banks in three countries to see if removing the costs to opening basic bank accounts would lead to more households opening and using bank accounts. Overall, use of the accounts was low across all three countries, and being offered a free, basic bank account had no impact...

In Egypt, a sizable portion of the prison population is incarcerated solely for failing to repay private debts, highlighting serious concerns about the social, economic, and legal consequences of debtor imprisonment. Researchers are conducting two randomized evaluations, the first tests the impact...

Despite the initial promise of microcredit, randomized evaluations have found at best modest effects of microloans on poverty. Digitized payments from government cash transfer programs provide a unique opportunity to offer microcredit while addressing some of its shortcomings, potentially reducing...

Researchers studied the impact of a clinical decision support software system on high-cost imaging orders. They found that clinical decision support reduced the number of high-cost scans targeted by the software but did not change the total number of high-cost scans ordered.

Researchers examined the impact of race concordance (when the race of a patient matches that of their physician) and incentives on the take-up of preventive health services by Black men. Results indicate that physician race concordance significantly boosted demand for all preventive health services...