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Union Leaders and Factory Workers’ Collective Action in Myanmar

Labor movements can improve workers’ lives but face great difficulty in getting workers to agree on common goals and take collective actions. In garment factory workers’ group discussions on minimum wage policies in Myanmar, researchers randomly included union leaders to study whether the presence...

Temporary Labor Migration as Mitigation: Strategies for Managing Seasonal Famine in Bangladesh

Can monetary incentives induce rural farmers to migrate to cities and pursue seasonal labor opportunities during times of famine?

Social Integration Effects of Pre-Migration Information Sessions in the Philippines

Victoria S. Licuanan
Andreas Steinmayr
Erwin Tiongson
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to investigate whether an expanded and more thorough version of an orientation program in the Philippines improved socioeconomic outcomes and facilitated settlement for migrants upon moving to the United States. The research team found that though the...

Information Campaign to Reduce Plastic Bag Consumption in Supermarkets in Mexico

Alberto Chong
Jeremy Shapiro
This evaluation measured the impact of different in-store information campaigns on the consumption of plastic shopping bags and the sale of reusable bags in grocery stores across Mexico. The information campaigns did not significantly reduce plastic bag consumption or increase the sale of the...

School Grants and Parents' Education Spending in India

Pramila Krishnan
Venkatesh Sundararaman
Researchers studied how a school grant program affected learning outcomes and household spending. After the first year of the grant program, students in treatment schools performed significantly better than those in comparison schools, but by the end of the second year, there was no detectable...

Improving Targeting of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Indonesia

Vivi Alatas
Ririn Purnamasari
Matthew Wai-Poi
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation with the Indonesian government that compared self-targeting to automatic screening in the context of a conditional cash transfer program. Requiring households to apply for a cash transfer program in Indonesia discouraged rich households from seeking out...

Improving the Allocation of Land Use Subsidies Through Self-Selection in Malawi

Elsa Maria Cardona Santos

In Malawi, researchers tested the impact of a subsidized tree planting program and tested whether allocating contracts randomly or through self-selection resulted in better program outcomes. Self-targeting outperformed random allocation of contracts in terms of tree survival and mitigated increases...