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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.

Impacts of Nonpartisan Political Information on Electoral Accountability in Mexico

Leveraging the increasingly widespread use of social media, researchers conducted a large-scale randomized evaluation to test the direct and indirect impact on electoral accountability of a nonpartisan information campaign delivered via Facebook ads during the 2018 Mexican municipal elections...

Providing Endowments to Improve Bargaining Outcomes for Microentrepreneurs in Ghana

Gisella Kagy
Lena Song
Researchers randomly provided more or less cash to garment-making firm owners in Ghana before a bargaining game to evaluate the impact of endowment on the negotiated sale price of a good. Owners of garment-making microenterprises with lower household liquidity agreed to lower sale prices during the...

Valuing Trust in Shantytowns in Peru

Markus Mobius
Tanya Rosenblat
In collaboration with PRISMA, a Peruvian NGO offering credit through village banks, researchers designed and implemented a new loan product, which required new clients to be sponsored by existing clients, to measure the relative importance of social networks and prices for borrowing in shantytowns...

The Role of Exposure, Social Networks and Marketing Messages in Households' Willingness to Pay for Malaria Prevention in Kenya

This study evaluated the impact of subsidies and two different marketing messages on the take-up of insecticide-treated bed nets by rural households. Take-up did not vary with the framing of marketing messages but was highly sensitive to changes in price. Gaining access to a highly subsidized bed...

Gender-specific managerial training program and firm productivity in Colombia

Researchers are evaluating the impact of providing a gender-specific managerial training program on career advancement prospects for women and workplace productivity.

Positive Psychology for Psychological Well-Being and Decision-Making in Kenya

In Kenya, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a light-touch positive psychology intervention on psychological well-being and economic decision-making for low-income populations. The intervention had a positive impact on gratitude; however, it had no significant...

Microfinance Repayment Schedules in West Bengal, India

John Papp
Jeannie Park
Researchers tested two features of these contracts, repayment frequency and the time of the first repayment, to determine if characteristics of the loan contract affect borrowers’ repayment behavior and the types of investments they make. They found that less frequent repayments did not increase...

Examining Underinvestment in Agriculture: Returns to Capital and Insurance Among Farmers in Ghana

Researchers in northern Ghana conducted a randomized evaluation to assess the underlying reason for underinvestment by examining the relative effectiveness of cash grants and insurance grants in improving crop yields. Results suggest that uninsured risk, rather than a lack of capital, was the...