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.

Forgive and Forget: The Impact of Medical Debt Forgiveness on Financial Outcomes in the United States

In this randomized evaluation, researchers evaluated the impact of a medical debt relief program (that buys and relieves a portion of individuals’ medical debt) on measures of mental and physical health, health care utilization, and financial well-being—including financial distress, credit score...

Small and Medium Enterprise Financing and Mentoring Services in Emerging Markets in the Dominican Republic

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation with a bank in the Dominican Republic to compare the impact of two distinct programs: standard accounting training versus a simplified, rule-of-thumb training that taught basic financial heuristics.

Measuring the Critical Window for Cognitive Skill Formation and Physical Development in Nicaragua

John A. Maluccio
In Nicaragua, researchers compared the cognitive and health outcomes of boys whose families received conditional cash transfers in the first three years of their lives to those who received the transfers later. Exposing boys to the program during the first 1,000 days of life led to better cognitive...

The Effects of Kindergarten Classroom on Earnings in the United States

John Friedman
Nathaniel Hilger
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach
Danny Yagan
Researchers measured the effect of class size, teacher quality, and classroom quality on earnings and other future outcomes for children participating in the Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project in Tennessee. The study found that smaller class sizes raised college attendance, more...

Opower: Evaluating the Impact of Home Energy Reports on Energy Conservation in the United States

Researchers studied the short- and long-run effects of these reports on electricity use and found that reports reduced energy consumption by about 2 percent across twelve utilities. The reports had the strongest effect in the short-run, but the program had enduring effects among households that were...

Dependence Duration and Labor Market Conditions: Evidence from the United States

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to assess the role of employer behavior in generating "negative duration dependence"—the adverse effect of longer unemployment spells—by sending fictitious resumes to real job postings in 100 U.S. cities. Callback rates declined sharply over the first...

Summer Jobs Improve Employment Outcomes for Connected Youth

Researchers studied the impact of a summer jobs program in Chicago on crime, education, and employment. The program dramatically reduced violent-crime arrests, including in the following school year, though it did not influence schooling or formal employment, and may have increased property crime in...