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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.

Household Risk Strategies and Conditional Cash Transfers in Nicaragua

Patrick Premand
Renos Vakis
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the effect of a basic CCT program, as well as two complementary interventions, on households’ vulnerability to irregular weather patterns. Providing households with vocational training or capital grants to generate non-agricultural income helps...

Video-Mediated Agricultural Extension to Increase Technology Adoption Among Farmers in Ethiopia

Gashaw Abate
Simrin Makhija
David J. Spielman
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a video-mediated extension approach on the uptake of technologies recommended by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture. The video-mediated instruction increased uptake through improved access to extension and farmer knowledge but...

The Effect of Information and Subsidies on Chlorine Usage in Zambia

Emir Kamenica
Informational campaigns and price subsidies are common ways to increase the use of health products in developing countries, but little is known about the effect of combining these tools. In Zambia, researchers investigated whether households’ demand for chlorine at varying subsidy levels was...

Improving Labor Market Opportunities to Increase Women's Employment and Education in India

Researchers provided three years of recruiting services to help young women in randomly selected rural Indian villages get jobs in the business process outsourcing industry. Women who had access to these recruiting services were significantly more likely to be employed outside the home at the end of...

Measuring the Impact of Clientelism on Voter Behavior in Benin

Christel Vermeersch
Voters in Benin had a preference for clientelist political platforms, but certain subsets of voters such as women, consumers of mass media, and members of social organizations were less receptive to clientelism.

The Impact of Exposure to Discordant Media on Political Polarization in Turkey

Ahmet Akbiyik
Jeremy Bowles
Researchers evaluated the impact of exposure to and incentives to consume discordant media on political attitudes and behaviors in Turkey. Participants changed their media consumption habits, trusted discordant media sources more, and had less polarized attitudes towards the government, but did not...

Mobilizing Black Voters Using Direct Mail and Commercial Phone Banks in the United States

Researchers evaluated the impact of direct mail and phone calls on the turnout of Black voters in ten different states. Neither mailings nor phone calls significantly impacted voter turnout, perhaps due to the large volume of political messaging that voters had to navigate.