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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 Impact of Personalized SMS Messages to Parents on Student Achievement in Kenya

Joost de Laat
Researchers are partnering with Bridge International Academies to evaluate the impact of an SMS-based information provision program on students’ learning outcomes in Kenya.

Impact of Digital Financial Education and Information Provision on Gender-Based Violence in Colombia

Mathew Bird
Lina Cardona
Pablo Lavado
In Colombia, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a messaging-based program via WhatsApp focused on financial education, couples’ communication, and information provision on financial capability, women’s empowerment, and intimate partner violence.

Managerial Practices for Improved Productivity of Skilled Workers in the UK

Greer Gosnell
Researchers worked with an airline to test the impact of different types of information and incentives on pilots’ productivity, as measured by pilots’ implementation of fuel-saving practices. Provision of personalized targets for achieving these fuel-saving practices led pilots to implement them...

Remedial Education to Address Learning Gaps in Secondary Schools in India

Anne Fitzpatrick
Khandker Wahedur Rahman
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of an in-school remedial education program on student learning in Odisha, India. Both the standard and a version that allowed teacher flexibility improved student test scores without reducing grade- level mastery or affecting the...

Peer Effects, Alcohol, and College Roommates in the United States

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of having a roommate who drank alcohol frequently before college on college students' grade point averages (GPAs). Results show that, while female students' GPAs were not affected by their roommate's drinking prior to college, male...

Rates of Return to Fertilizer: Evidence from Field Experiments in Kenya

Jonathan Robinson
Researchers in Kenya collaborated with the NGO International Child Support to measure the returns to different types of fertilizer among local farmers. While results show that all interventions led to increases in yield, rate-of-return calculations indicate that not all were profitable for the...

The Impact of Information Provision on Farmer Decision Making in Indonesia

Joshua Schwartzstein
In Indonesia, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation with seaweed farmers to observe both the impact of participating in a program that determined optimal seaweed production methods and receiving summarized results of the program on the adoption of optimal farming inputs. They find that...

Multigenerational Benefits to Secondary Schooling in Ghana

Elizabeth Spelke
Mark Walsh
A study conducted in Ghana over 15 years evaluated the benefits of secondary school scholarships on both education and health outcomes.