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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.

The Value of Postsecondary Credentials in the Labor Market

Amira Abulafi
Claudia Goldin
For-profit (and often online) universities account for nearly half of all postsecondary growth over the last decade, yet relatively little is known about how employers value and compare these education types. To test this, researchers randomly submitted resumes with different characteristics and...

Welfare Benefits of Decentralized Solar Energy for the Rural Poor in India

To evaluate the demand for solar electricity, researchers randomly offered solar microgrid connections at different prices to households in rural areas of Bihar, India. Demand for microgrids was highly variable and low when they were offered at market price, likely because there were several other...

Graduating Low-Income Households in Honduras

Bram Thuysbaert
To test this theory, researchers in six countries evaluated a multi-faceted approach aimed at improving long term income of low-income households. They found that the approach had long-lasting economic and self-employment impacts and that the long-run benefits, measured in terms of household...

Decentralized Pricing for Public Services: Evidence from Tanzania

Florian Blum
Researchers introduced a price regulation on poultry vaccines in Tanzania to evaluate the impact of reducing service providers’ discretion over prices on the number of recipients served, prices charged, and the overall welfare of beneficiaries. The price-cap reduced the average price of vaccinations...

Meet Your Future – The Effect of Mentoring Ugandan Vocational Students on Employment and Earnings

Livia Alfonsi
Mary Namubiru
In Uganda, researchers introduced a mentoring program to evaluate the impact of interactions between young, successful vocational training graduates and current vocational training students on their employment status and earnings. Students who received mentoring were more likely to be working three...

Using Technology to Promote Electoral Participation in South Africa

Karen Ferree
Clark Gibson
Danielle Jung
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of the VIP:Voice, a digital election participation platform, to measure the impact of information and communications technologies on individuals’ political participation. Via the platform, researchers interacted with nearly 100,000 citizens, recruited...

The Impact of Nursery Quality, Empowerment, and Nutrition Interventions on Early Childhood Development and Women’s Employment in Egypt

Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a package of interventions with the aim of improving the quality of nurseries, enhancing nutrition, and empowering women to address poverty and promote early childhood development in Egypt.

The Effects of Reciprocity in Voter Mobilization Calls on Voter Turnout in the United States

Albert Fang
Gregory A. Huber
Catlan Reardon
Researchers evaluated the role of reciprocity in increasing voter turnout through voter mobilization calls by varying whether an initial phone call included a plausible sign of good will by the campaign—an offer to follow up reminding them to vote.