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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.

Impact of Peer Motivation on Worker Productivity in Malawi

Lasse Brune
Researchers at the Lujeri Tea Estates in Malawi evaluated the impact of exposure to more, less, or equally productive peers on tea harvester productivity. They found that increasing the productivity of a worker’s peers meaningfully increased worker productivity, measured in kilograms of tea picked...

Connecting Smallholder Farmers to Agricultural Value Chains in Rwanda

Ammar Kawash
Jonathan Robinson
Alan Spearot
Guanghong Xu
Researchers are evaluating the effects of providing farmers with access to maize processing services that could improve maize quality on their input decisions.

The Role of Information and Preferences in School Choices in Romania

Robert Ainsworth
Rajeev Dehejia
In this randomized evaluation in Romania, researchers compared the roles of preferences and information in households’ decision-making, with regard to high school selection. Results suggest that households provided with information on school quality tend to choose schools that have a greater...

Information Campaigns to Increase Mobile Banking Adoption in Ghana

In Ghana, researchers worked with a bank that provides services to low-income customers with limited access to mainstream banking to evaluate the impact of sending pre-recorded informational voice calls and text messages on the adoption of mobile banking. Clients that received messages encouraging...

The Impact of Encouraging Mobile Money Use on Women’s Empowerment in Tanzania

Supporting women’s empowerment, the ability for women to control their resources and make their own choices, is a common policy goal both as its own outcome and as a vehicle to drive other change like improving children’s health and education. Many empowerment programs have targeted women’s income...

The Impact of Psychosocial Therapy and Vocational Skills Training on Intimate Partner Violence in Urban Liberia

Naresh Kumar
David Park
In partnership with the Liberia National Red Cross Society, researchers evaluated a holistic approach to reducing IPV, in which vulnerable women received intensive psychosocial support and vocational skills training. The program reduced physical and emotional IPV; it also increased participants’...

Balsakhi Remedial Tutoring in Vadodara and Mumbai, India

Researchers evaluated the impact of the Balsakhi Program, a remedial tutoring education intervention implemented in schools in Vadodara and Mumbai, India, on student learning. The program significantly improved student test scores in both locations.