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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.

Increasing Access to Infrastructure and Property Values through Urban Investment in Mexico

Researchers evaluated the impacts of a $68 million infrastructure investment program in Mexico on urban residents’ access to infrastructure, property values, private investment, moving rates, and community cohesion. The study found that access to infrastructure and property values improved in...

Impacts of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs on Voting in Honduras

In this randomized evaluation in Honduras, researchers assessed how the national Programa de Asignación Familiar (Family Allowance Program) CCT program, which provided a combination of transfers to households and transfers to support public goods, influenced voting in local and national elections...

The Effect of School Choice on Academic Achievement in the United States

Julie Berry Cullen
Researchers used Chicago’s school choice program, which uses a random lottery to allocate slots in elementary schools, to evaluate how the opportunity to attend a higher-quality school impacts academic achievement. They found that lottery winners are more likely to attend higher-performing schools...

Publicizing Tax Credits for Political Contributions in the United States

Robert G. Boatright
Michael J. Malbin
In Ohio, researchers tested the effect of an informational mailing on the number of tax filers claiming the political contribution tax credit. They found that the campaign generated a moderate increase in the number of individuals claiming the credit, but at a cost of over US$2000 per filer.

Certification, Teacher Effectiveness, and Student Learning in the United States

Steven Cantrell
Jon Fullerton
Certified teachers were no more likely than non-applicants to be effective at improving students’ test scores, but were more effective than unsuccessful applicants. Researchers found that estimates of teacher effectiveness based on test scores from previous years were a strong predictor of student...

The Impact of a Tax Holiday Lottery in Uruguay

Felipe Monestier
Rafael Piñeiro
Fernando Rosenblatt
Guadalupe Tuñón
Researchers tested in the case of Montevideo, Uruguay the impact of winning a tax holiday on subsequent tax compliance. Winners of the tax holiday lottery were 3 percentage points less likely to pay taxes in subsequent payment cycles, likely because the holiday disrupted the habit of tax paying, and...