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Browse news articles about J-PAL and our affiliated professors, and read our press releases and monthly global and research newsletters. For media inquiries, please email us.

Gazelles in Ghana: Identifying High-Growth Firms Through Panel Judges or Survey Instruments

Researchers conducted a business plan competition to test whether panel judges or questionnaires answered by firm owners could more accurately identify the fastest growing firms in Ghana. Both survey assessments and judging of business plans through panels selected firms with the potential for...

Business Training for Women in Ahmedabad, India

Researchers offered two days of business training and assistance in identifying a medium-term financial goal to a random sample of women of different castes and religions in India. A random sub-sample of women were invited to attend the training with a friend. Women trained with a friend doubled...

What is the Impact of Housing Microfinance and Construction Quality Support? A Rigorous Impact Evaluation

Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of providing microloans for housing to the underprivileged in the Menia governorate on the improvement of families' well-being.

The Use and Misuse of Computers in Education: Evidence from a Language Arts Program in Colombia

In Colombia, researchers evaluated the impacts of a national computer distribution program (Computers for Education) on student test scores, time spent on learning, and attitudes towards education. The program had no effect on math or Spanish test scores, hours of study, or perceptions of school...

Changing Handwashing Behavior with Edutainment in Bangladesh

Kailash Pandey
Chikako Yamauchi
Researchers conducted an evaluation to test the impact of a hand-hygiene edutainment (entertainment education) campaign on handwashing and health in Bangladesh. The campaign improved handwashing and child health but had no impact on hygiene knowledge.

Politicians, Publicly-Released Audits of Corruption, and Electoral Outcomes in Brazil

Taking advantage of a federal anticorruption program that randomly assigned municipalities to be audited, the researchers compared the electoral outcomes for mayors in two randomly selected groups of municipalities: those that were audited before and those that were audited after the 2004 election...

Evaluating the Karnataka Integrated Medical Information and Disease Surveillance System (IMIDSS) in Primary Health Centers in India

Researchers tested whether a monitoring system that recorded employees’ fingerprints at the beginning and end of each day could improve staff attendance and patient health in primary health centers in Karnataka. The monitoring system increased attendance among medical staff, but not doctors, and...

The Impact of Credit-Scoring on Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Lending and Performance in the Philippines

Researchers are working with a large bank in the Philippines, using random assignment to offer loans to SME applicants who fall just below the threshold to be automatically approved for a loan. Comparing firms that received the loans to a similar group that did not will allow for a better...