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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.

Using Text Messages to Prevent the Spread of Covid-19 in India

Girija Bahety
Dev Patel
James Potter
Researchers tested whether reminders delivered via text message improved knowledge and adoption of social distancing and handwashing. They found no evidence that individuals changed their self-reported behaviors; this finding may highlight limited effectiveness of SMS-based information campaigns...

Demand for Manufacturing Training Services in Bangladesh

Researchers are partnering with the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) to identify barriers to a wider market for consulting and training in Bangladesh by offering high-quality manufacturing training services at randomly-assigned price points and covering different topics. They find...

The Effectiveness of Financial Disclosure in the United Kingdom

Paul D. Adams
Stefan Hunt
Redis Zaliauskas
Researchers partnered with financial providers in the United Kingdom to evaluate the effectiveness of various disclosure designs aimed at supporting consumers’ financial decisions across savings products. Although most disclosures increased the number of consumers that switched to higher-yielding...

Instruction and Financial Incentives to Improve Covid-19 Knowledge in Mozambique

James Allen
James Riddell IV
James Allen IV
Arlete Mahumane
Tanya Rosenblat
Hang Yu
In Mozambique, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether teaching about Covid-19 prevention and/or financial learning incentives enhanced participants’ knowledge related to Covid-19. They found that both interventions improved Covid-19 knowledge separately and, moreover...

The Impact of Emergency Cash Assistance in a Pandemic

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in Colombia to assess the effects of emergency cash assistance on the well-being of households. Recipients of the UCT experienced improved financial health, food access, and psychological well-being. Colombia’s newly implemented mobile money system...

Connecting Egyptian Women to Gender-Based Violence Resources via Social Media during Covid-19

Elizabeth Parker-Magyar
Researchers partnered with the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights to evaluate the effect of educational social media and TV campaigns on women’s attitudes and behaviors around responding to GBV and IPV. The social media campaign increased women’s knowledge and use of resources, but had no impact on...

Increasing Take-Up of the Earned Income Tax Credit

Across six randomized evaluations, researchers studied the impact of low-cost, low-touch informational interventions, or “nudges,” on take-up of the federal and state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in California. None of the interventions had an impact on EITC take-up, suggesting that information...

Housing Lottery to Increase Demand for Formal Government Housing and Improve Welfare in Ethiopia

In low- to middle-income countries around the world, nearly one billion people lived in urban informal settlements as of 2018. Rapid urbanization in most large African cities has led to both more people and a higher proportion of people living in informal settlements over time. Researchers conducted...