News

Women who received private access to vouchers for contraceptives were more likely to take up and use contraception, compared to women whose husbands were involved in the voucher program.

Researchers tested how demand for weather insurance responded to different marketing schemes and price discounts. They found that demand was very price sensitive, but that poor understanding of the product, distrust of insurance agents, and liquidity constraints also limited take-up.

In Bangladesh, researchers evaluated how temporary exposure to a community driven development program altered citizens’ preferences for inclusive, participatory approaches to decision-making. In this context, exposure to participatory decision-making increased the value that communities assigned to...

Researchers partnered with Banco Agrícola to conduct a randomized evaluation that offered a way for Salvadoran migrants to directly channel some fraction of their remittances into savings accounts in El Salvador. Results indicate that a desire for control over remittance uses—in particular the...

Researchers analyzed the effect of reducing barriers to saving in rural Malawi on savings behavior, investment in agricultural inputs, and consumption. They found that farmers with access to formal savings accounts preserved greater amounts of savings throughout both the harvest and planting seasons...

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to assess employer discrimination by randomizing applicants' self-described gender and marital status on resumes submitted to prospective employers.

The Government of Zambia partnered with researchers to test the effect of two different recruitment strategies for a newly created healthcare position, the Community Health Assistant (CHA). One strategy emphasized career opportunities and the other emphasized the contributions one could make in the...

Researchers in rural Western Uganda tested whether a microfinance program can help women borrowers switch out of subsistence agriculture to other labor activities, such as entrepreneurship or small-scale trading. While microloans helped women switch into service-based jobs including small-scale...