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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.

Comparing the Impacts of Industrial Jobs and Self-Employment in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, researchers randomly assigned mostly female jobseekers to receive an industrial job offer or an unconditional cash transfer, meant to spur self-employment. While they found positive impacts of the cash transfers on occupational choice, income, and health in the first year, these effects...

Improving Literacy Through Cognitive Science: Evidence from the United Arab Emirates

Anett John
Malak Koura
Arabic-speaking countries perform poorly on international reading assessments. Evidence from cognitive science suggests that several features of Arabic make the language particularly difficult for beginning readers. In partnership with the Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research (AQF), researchers...

Identifying Effective Teachers in the United States

Daniel McCaffrey
Trey Miller
Researchers evaluated how well different measures of teacher effectiveness predicted student performance in six school districts in the United States. Measures of teacher effectiveness based on student achievement in the previous year, classroom observations, and student surveys accurately...

When do Media Stations Support Political Accountability? A Field Experiment in Mexico

Christopher Lucas
John Marshall
Researchers are using a randomized evaluation in Mexico to study the incentives media stations face when choosing to provide voters with indicators of their incumbent party’s performance in office.

The Impact of Feedback on University Student Performance in Spain

Ghazala Azmat
Antonio Cabrales
Nagore Iriberri
Researchers shared information on students’ relative academic standing among university students in Spain to evaluate the impact of this information on student performance and satisfaction. Providing students with information on their relative standing led to a short-term decrease in academic...