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.

Improving Labor Courts through Competition in Mexico

Researchers are partnering with the Mexico City Labor Court to evaluate whether rotating court notifiers across areas and casefiles can reduce incidences of bribery, increase the notification rates, and improve the functioning of labor courts.

The Impact of Messaging and Incentives on Survey Response Rates to Understand Barriers COVID-19 Testing in the United States

To better understand barriers to COVID-19 testing for underserved communities, researchers evaluated the impact of varying flyer messaging and survey incentive rates on survey responses. Researchers will use survey responses to identify the most important barriers to testing and potential community...

Providing Life Skills Training and Mentoring To Reduce School Dropout Among Girls in India

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of life skills training and mentoring on dropout rates and non-cognitive skills among girls in India. Their evidence suggests that the intervention is successful in developing stronger life skills including increased agency, more...

Attracting Talented Workers by Reducing Application Costs in Ethiopia

Girum Abebe
Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
Researchers partnered with an employer in Addis Ababa to assess the impact of a small monetary incentive to apply for a job or a higher wage offer on the quality of applicants to a vacancy for a clerical position. Both of these changes increased the quality of applicants by similar amounts.

The Impact of Meritocratic Promotions and Pay Progression on Health Care Workers' Productivity in Sierra Leone

Philipp Kastrau
Researchers tested the impact of a meritocratic promotion system and beliefs about pay progression on the productivity of Community Health Workers in Sierra Leone. A combination of meritocracy and the promise of a steep salary increase after promotion led workers to make more health care visits...

Group Versus Individual Liability in the Philippines

Xavier Giné
In this study, researchers randomly selected existing group-lending centers to convert to an individual liability model. They found no difference in repayment rates between individuals assigned individual liability and those assigned group liability, no change in overall profitability for the bank...

Measuring the Impact of Microcredit on Borrowing and Business Outcomes in the Philippines

Researchers measured the impact of individual-liability microcredit on marginally creditworthy applicants in the Philippines. They found that increased access to microcredit expanded borrowing and improved risk management and sharing, but it also led clients to shrink their businesses.

Limited Insurance Within the Household in Kenya

Jonathan Robinson
Researchers examined whether intra-household risk-sharing mechanisms such as financial transfers between spouses operate efficiently in Western and Nyanza Provinces of Kenya and found that intra-household insurance to protect against economic shocks was inefficient among daily income earners.