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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.

The Impact of Pre‐Arraignment Legal Representation on Pretrial Release and Criminal Case Outcomes in Santa Clara County, California

Researchers evaluated the impact of the Pre-Arraignment Representation and Review (PARR) model on pretrial release and case outcomes. The findings showed that early access to public defenders increased both the likelihood and speed of pretrial release and improved case outcomes, including a lower...

Graduating Low-Income Households in Honduras

Bram Thuysbaert
To test this theory, researchers in six countries evaluated a multi-faceted approach aimed at improving long term income of low-income households. They found that the approach had long-lasting economic and self-employment impacts and that the long-run benefits, measured in terms of household...

Decentralized Pricing for Public Services: Evidence from Tanzania

Florian Blum
Researchers introduced a price regulation on poultry vaccines in Tanzania to evaluate the impact of reducing service providers’ discretion over prices on the number of recipients served, prices charged, and the overall welfare of beneficiaries. The price-cap reduced the average price of vaccinations...

The Impact of Private Tutoring Prices on Student Attendance and Performance in India

Priya Mukherjee
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the demand for private tutoring services and estimate how pricing can influence enrollment in these services. Results suggest that higher prices reduced demand for private tutoring and also led to higher drop-out rates over time, with no...

Increasing the Electoral Participation of Immigrants: Experimental Evidence from France

Guillaume Liegey
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a general voter outreach effort on the political participation of immigrants relative to participation of non-immigrants. The canvassing treatment increased voter turnout of immigrants without affecting turnout of non-immigrants.

Using Peer Pressure to Encourage Handwashing in Argentina

Felipe Montaño Campos
Lucía Freira
Matías Gutman
Bruno Cardinale Lagomarsino
María Laura Lanzalot
Maximiliano Lauletta
Leandro E. Malchik
Bianca Pacini
Cristian Valencia
Researchers examined the impact of peer pressure on handwashing behavior by varying whether men using a restroom in Buenos Aires, Argentina were observed by another restroom user. They found that being observed increased urinal flushing by 26.7 percent and handwashing by 19 percent, suggesting that...