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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.

Secured Transaction Reform to Increase Access to Capital for Small and Medium Enterprises in Colombia

Entrepreneurs in developing countries face a number of barriers to expanding their businesses and employing more workers, including limited access to credit and other financial services. In Colombia, researchers are investigating whether a regulatory reform that allows small and medium enterprises...

Countering Covid-19 Misinformation through WhatsApp in Zimbabwe

In this randomized evaluation in Zimbabwe, researchers studied how social media messages targeting misinformation can affect people’s beliefs about and responses toward Covid-19. The study found that these messages increased participants’ knowledge of Covid-19 information by 7 percentage points and...

The Impact of Personalized Information on Informed School Choice in Chile

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of an information program on parental school choice and long-term student achievement. They found that the intervention shifted household school choices of those who were not enrolled before the intervention toward establishments...

Providing Foodstuffs and Cash Loans to Improve Smallholder Farming in Zambia

In Zambia, researchers examined the impact of access to seasonal credit on farming households’ consumption, labor allocation, and agricultural output. The results suggest that access to food and cash loans during the lean season increased agricultural output and consumption, decreased off-farm labor...

Improving Women’s Labor and Welfare Outcomes through Microfinance in Uganda

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...

Information and College Access in Canada

Ryan Dunn
Researchers examined whether a simple, inexpensive information campaign could change students’ knowledge and perceptions about post-secondary education. When exposed to an informational video, students who had been initially unsure about pursuing higher education reported expectations of higher...

Social Networks and the Decision to Insure in China

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of the ways in which information dissemination within social networks affected farmers’ adoption of a weather insurance product in rural China. Results suggest that social networks had a significantly positive effect on insurance take-up, driven by the...