Blog

News

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.

Accountability and Transparency in the Mining Sector of Peru

Renard Sexton
Researchers evaluated an accountability workshop program, which educated citizens on the distribution of extractive industry tax revenues and the formal means of local political participation. The program had mixed results on local government quality, increasing the likelihood of initiating recall...

Informing Policy with Research in Brazil

Juan Francisco Santini
Researchers partnered with the National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM) in Brazil to evaluate the impact of access to research results on policymakers’ demand for research findings and interest in adopting evidence-informed policies. Policymakers were willing to pay for research findings and...

Examining the Effect of Information about Financial Aid for Higher Education on Schooling Outcomes in Chile

Claudia Martinez
Researchers tested the effects of providing low-income students in urban Chile with information about financial aid for higher education on their educational attainment and their likelihood of progressing to higher education. A video informing students about financing higher education increased...

Long-Term Effects of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Nicaragua

John A. Maluccio
Researchers worked with the Government of Nicaragua to evaluate the long-term impact of time-limited CCTs on education, reproductive health, and labor market outcomes. Ten years later, people whose families were offered cash transfers when they were younger children had higher labor force...

Peer Effects and Financial Decisionmaking in Brazil

Florian Ederer
Noam Yuchtman
Researchers tested the independent impact of two channels, social learning (when someone purchases an asset after a peer expresses a desire to purchase the same asset) and social utility (when someone feels he can gain more from an asset because his peer owns it), on financial decisions in Brazil...

Vocational Training for Improved Employability and Job Expectations in the Dominican Republic

Paloma Acevedo
Sebastián Martínez
Researchers introduced a soft skills component into a vocational training program in the Dominican Republic to assess the interaction between job and soft skills training on labor market outcomes and expectations. Women experienced increased employment rates and wages in the short term, which...

Evaluating the Impact of a Growth Mindset Intervention in Argentina

Alejandro Ganimian
In Argentina, a researcher evaluated whether informing students of their potential could be a cost-effective way to increase motivation and improve educational outcomes among secondary school students. They found that the intervention did not impact students’ perceptions of the difficulty of school...

Using Encouragement to Overcome Psychological Barriers to Saving in Peru

Researchers examined the impact of an initiative to promote savings, through financial incentives, reminders, and messaging, on the savings behavior of the urban poor in Peru. Preliminary results found that the initiative increased the probability that clients reached their savings goals; negatively...