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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.

Election Fraud and Government Legitimacy in Afghanistan

Researchers evaluated the impact of photographic monitoring technology on aggregation fraud and perceptions of government legitimacy during the 2010 parliamentary elections in Afghanistan. The announcement of a new monitoring technology reduced both theft of election materials and vote counts for...

Returns to Information and Temporary Discounts on Remittances for Guatemalan and Salvadoran Migrants in Washington DC

Kate Ambler
Diego Aycinena
Researchers evaluated two programs to explore factors that may influence the amount of remittances people send: a temporary discount on the transaction fee and the provision of information about the returns to education in their home country. While the information about education did not change...

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...

The Impact of Employment on High-Risk Men in Liberia

Jeannie Annan
In Liberia, researchers tested the effect of an intensive agricultural training program that also provided agricultural supplies and psychosocial counseling on employment activities, income, and socio-political integration. Fourteen months after the program, participants spent more time working in...

Community Service Grants to Foster Social and Economic Integration for Youth in Kazakhstan

In Kazakhstan, researchers tested whether offering youth community service grants and training impacted their level of community engagement, pro-social behavior, life skills, and labor market outcomes. Engaging youth in civic service and/or training had little to no effect on these outcomes one-year...

The Effect of Randomized School Admissions on Voter Participation in the United States

Understanding the factors that influence voting behavior is a central policy issue. Often voting outcomes directly determine funding of critical public goods such as public education.

The Impact of Informational Interventions about Police Alternatives on Police Reliance in the United States

Meghna Baskar
Tony Cheng
Rei Mariman
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of providing information about police alternatives on individuals' reported likelihood of calling the police and a follow-up randomized evaluation to understand key public-safety stakeholders’ receptiveness of police alternatives. The...

The Degree of Ethnic Bias in Kenya

Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge
Simon Galle
Bertil Tungodden
Kelly Zhang
Researchers in Kenya conducted multiple lab studies at the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics to explore the degree of ethnic bias in the local population and assess how bias may affect participants’ behavior. Contrary to existing assumptions about ethnic preferences in Kenya, researchers found...