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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.

Cash Transfers’ Effects on Food Consumption in Mexico

Carlos Chiapa
Silvia Prina
Irvin Rojas
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of the anti-poverty cash transfer program, PROSPERA, on food consumption for families living in poverty in Mexico. Households consumed enough food both before and after receiving the cash transfer.

Real-Time Pricing to Reduce Electricity Use in the United States

During periods of high electricity use that strain the grid, electricity customers do not have any reason to conserve because they pay a fixed price per kilowatt hour of power. In this study, the researcher evaluated the impact on electricity usage of a real-time pricing scheme, which charges...

The Value of Regulatory Discretion: Estimates from Environmental Inspections in India

Researchers are evaluating the impact of making environmental inspections of high-polluting industrial plants more frequent and removing regulator discretion in selecting plants for inspection on regulatory compliance and pollution emissions in Gujarat, India.

Text Messages as Reminders for Antiretroviral Medication Adherence in Kenya

Researchers introduced text message reminders to evaluate their effect on Kenyan patients taking their antiretrovirals consistently and not skipping doses. Patients who received weekly text messages were more likely to take their medicine 90 percent of the time and were less likely to skip doses for...

Using GPS-enabled Cellphones to Monitor Agricultural Extension Agents in Paraguay

Researchers partnered with the Government of Paraguay to measure the impact of a new monitoring technology—GPS-enabled cell phones—on the job performance of agricultural extension agents (AEAs). Overall, cell phones improved AEAs’ performance by increasing the share of farmers visited, and...

Student Incentive Structures in Malawi

Hyuncheol Kim
Hyuk Harry Son
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of two different performance-based incentives on students’ test scores, motivation, and behavior in Malawi. They find that tournament-style incentives that rewarded the top performers among a large group lowered test scores and student...

Tablet-Based Financial Education in Colombia

Matthew Bird
Lina Cardona-Sosa
Pablo Lavado
Researchers collaborated with Fundación Capital and the Government of Colombia to conduct a randomized evaluation of LISTA, a tablet-based financial education program designed for participants in Colombia's government CCT program, to study its impact on financial knowledge and behavior. LISTA had...

Can Transferring Policing Power to Community Members Improve Legal Protection in Papua New Guinea?

Jasper Cooper
The researcher used a randomized evaluation in Papua New Guinea to study the impact of the Community Auxiliary Police (CAP), a program that devolves policing powers to carefully selected community members. Results suggest increased state presence may have widened the gap between men and women’s...