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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.

Financial and Informational Barriers to Migration in the Philippines

David McKenzie
In the Philippines, researchers tested several interventions designed to ease informational, job search, and documentation barriers to working overseas. They found that some interventions increased the number of participants who searched for work or acquired passports, but none led to increases in...

The Value of Communication for Mental Health in Ghana

Re searchers used a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of providing mobile calling credits to low-income adults on well-being outcomes in Ghana. Overall, the mobile credit intervention increased the ability for individuals to meet unexpected communication needs, particularly when delivered...

Understanding Male Fertility Preferences in Zambia

Alessandra Voena
Researchers in Zambia evaluated the impact of teaching husbands about the dangers of maternal mortality on their acceptance of family planning methods.

Long-run and Intergenerational Impacts of Child Health Gains from Deworming in Kenya

Researchers conducted long-term follow-ups a mass school-based deworming program in western Kenya, which had substantially improved health and school participation of treated children, as well as of untreated children in treatment schools and children in neighboring schools in the short-term...

Group Lending versus Individual Lending in Mongolia

Britta Augsburg
Emla Fitzsimons
Ralph De Haas
Heike Harmgart
Researchers compared the impacts of providing group- or individual-liability loans to women in rural Mongolia. Access to group loans increased business ownership and food consumption among poor women, while individual loans had no effect on these outcomes.

Using Deliberative Electoral Strategies to Overcome Clientelism in Benin

Town hall meetings in Benin reduced the ability of the most popular presidential candidate in that village to garner political support using clientelist tactics, and still appear to be effective for motivating people to attend the polls.

Evaluating the Impact of Moving to Opportunity in the United States

Emma Adam
Paul Hirschfield
Ronald C. Kessler
Jeffrey Kling
Stacy Tessler Lindau
Thomas W. McDade
Joshua C. Pinkston
Lisa Sanbonmatsu
Robert C. Whitaker
Helping families with young children living in high-poverty housing projects to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods improves the later-life outcomes for the children and may reduce the intergenerational persistence of poverty.