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Researchers tested two features of these contracts, repayment frequency and the time of the first repayment, to determine if characteristics of the loan contract affect borrowers’ repayment behavior and the types of investments they make. They found that less frequent repayments did not increase...

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...

Researchers in northern Ghana evaluated the underlying reason for underinvestment by examining the relative effectiveness of cash grants and insurance grants in improving crop yields. Results suggest that uninsured risk, rather than a lack of capital, was the primary constraint on investment...

Researchers evaluated the impact of admission to one of Mongolia’s formal vocational training programs on students’ educational attainment, employment, and earnings. Admission led to higher educational attainment and employment for applicants, especially for women, and increased earnings for women.

In Kenya, researchers studied whether information or price subsidies influenced demand for a simple health product which could be effective in preventing soil-transmitted helminths (STHs). While providing liquidity and targeting women can increase demand for preventative health products, price has...

Researchers used two experiments to identify whether the motive for giving in public can be primarily linked to a desire for prestige (the “image” effect) or a hope that a public gift will influence others (the “signal” effect). They found that a desire to improve social image largely explained why...

Researchers randomly evaluated whether well-timed access to credit would allow maize farmers in Kenya to make better use of storage and sell their output at higher prices. The loan offers allowed farmers to store more maize and earn higher revenues, with larger revenue impacts for farmers granted...