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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.

Family Networks, Consumption, and Investment in Mexico

Researchers studied a government-funded conditional cash transfer program to evaluate the impact of family networks on consumption and investment decisions for low-income households in Mexico. Food expenditure increased among both eligible connected households and ineligible households connected to...

Debates: The Impact of Voter Knowledge Initiatives in Sierra Leone

In Sierra Leone, researchers evaluated the effect of publicly-screened debates during the run-up to parliamentary elections. Debates impacted voters’ political knowledge and voting decisions, and also caused candidates to invest more in their constituencies, both during the campaign and one year...

Formal Rainfall Insurance for the Informally Insured in India

Mark Rosenzweig
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test how informal insurance within Indian sub-castes affected the demand for formal rainfall insurance, and subsequent risk-taking among households employed in agriculture. Informal insurance both increased and decreased the demand for formal rainfall...

Local Leadership and the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods in Bolivia

María P. Recalde
Researchers used a randomized evaluation to test how local leaders influence the voluntary provision of public goods. They solicited contributions for environmental education books, which all members of the community would be able to access, and varied whether leaders made public contributions. They...

The Effect of Incentive-Based Pay in the Weatherization Assistance Program on Energy Efficiency in Illinois

Paul Francisco
Erica Myers
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of the Illinois Home Weatherization Assistance Program (IHWAP), which aims to improve energy efficiency in low-income households. The study tested the impact of performance-based pay for contractors implementing air sealing retrofits as part of IHWAP...

The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment in the United States

Heidi Allen
Mira Bernstein
Jonathan Gruber
Joseph P. Newhouse
Eric Schneider
Jae Song
Bill Wright
Alan Zaslavsky
In a series of evaluations, researchers took advantage of a lottery that gave low-income uninsured adults the chance to apply for Medicaid in the United States to examine the impact of health insurance on these outcomes over the first two years.