News

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of employment on refugee psychosocial well-being in Bangladesh. The study found that employment generated significant psychosocial value beyond that from cash transfers alone.

In Mali, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test how the design and timing of a physical market for inputs (village input fairs) with varying levels of credit access affected farmers’ investment decisions. They found that farmers with access to credit from VIFs organized after harvest...

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...

In Nigeria, researchers worked with a financial service provider to evaluate the impact of digital loans on welfare. Being approved for the loans increased subjective well-being after three months, for applicants who normally would have been denied.

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...

Researchers are partnering with a leading mobile network operator to investigate how the internet affects financial and economic outcomes, particularly for women.

Researchers tested whether sharing messages that appealed to negative emotions, like shame or disgust, increased households’ hand washing behavior and willingness to pay for water chlorination in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Negative messaging had no impact on chlorination levels or willingness to pay, but...