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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 Social Program Targeting Strategies on Reported and Actual Asset Ownership in Indonesia

Researchers partnered with the Government of Indonesia to conduct a randomized evaluation that tested whether adding questions on flat-screen televisions and cellphone SIM cards to a targeting census would change people’s reporting and actual purchases of those items. The findings suggest that while...

Mitigating the Economic and Mental Health Impacts of Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected health systems and economies across the world. Low-income communities have experienced particularly detrimental impacts, as a lack of financial stability further exacerbated augment the crisis. In partnership with the mental health care center SCARF, researchers...

Social Integration Effects of Pre-Migration Information Sessions in the Philippines

Victoria S. Licuanan
Andreas Steinmayr
Erwin Tiongson
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to investigate whether an expanded and more thorough version of an orientation program in the Philippines improved socioeconomic outcomes and facilitated settlement for migrants upon moving to the United States. The research team found that though the...

Impact of Job Uncertainty and Work Experience on Job Seeker Performance, Employment, and Earnings in Malawi

In Lilongwe, Malawi, researchers provided applicants for a health interviewer job with a random chance of receiving a back-up job, regardless of their success in being hired as a health interviewer, to measure (a) the impact of uncertainty on job search performance and (b) the returns to work...

The Impact of Informational Meetings on Secondary School Choice in Kenya

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of short informational meetings with students and parents on secondary school choice. They found that these meetings increased students’ and parents’ knowledge of the application process and led students to pick lower-cost and more...

The Impact of Group-based Therapy and Cash Transfers on Adolescent Girls' Mental Health and Economic Outcomes in Uganda

Chiara Dell'Aira
Berk Ozler
Luca Parisotto
Danish Us-Salam
Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impacts of group-based therapy with and without a one-time lump sum cash transfers on the mental health and employment outcomes of adolescent girls in Uganda.

Investigating the Impact of Credit with Performance-Contingent Repayment in Kenya

Franseco Cordaro
Colin Mayer
Kate Roll
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether a performance-based repayment contract could outperform conventional microcredit contracts, or fixed-payment loans, in improving business outcomes and welfare for micro-distributors in Kenya. Micro-distributors who received flexible...

Discrimination in the Job Market in the United States

Researchers examined the level of racial discrimination in the United States labor market by randomly assigning identical résumés black-sounding or white-sounding names and observing the impact on requests for interviews from employers. Results found that résumés with white-sounding names received...