Researchers partnered with a large payday lender in Indiana to conduct an evaluation to better understand consumers’ decision-making. The results suggest that average borrowers can anticipate their probability of taking loans in the future. However, people focus too much on the present when making decisions about payday loans, a behavior that they would like to change.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of sanitation and hand-washing promotion campaigns, alone and in combination, on household knowledge, behavior, and child health (diarrhea prevalence, stunting, wasting, and anemia). While the program improved hygiene and sanitation behavior, it had no impact on child health outcomes.

Researchers worked with Innovations for Poverty Action, the Liberian Ministry of Education, and the group of eight private operators to conduct a randomized evaluation to assess the effects of outsourcing management of public schools after one and three years.

COVID-19 school closures have led to widespread student learning loss in the United States. Researchers are evaluating the impact of individualized, virtual summer instruction on redressing these losses. This project is ongoing. Results forthcoming.

Responsive governments have the ability to make laws and decisions that reflect their constituents’ preferences. However, legislators may lack necessary information about constituents’ opinions and may therefore be unable to meet their demands. Researchers measured whether providing targeted information about citizens’ and firms’ preferences to members of the Vietnamese National Assembly (VNA) increased legislators’ responsiveness. VNA delegates who received information about their citizens’ preferences were more prepared and likely to speak in debates ; however, delegates did not appear to be responsive to information about local firms’ preferences. In addition, delegates grew more responsive as other delegates received the same information.

Using data from a previous randomized evaluation in rural India that tested the effect of asset transfers to low-income households on overall consumption, researchers analyzed whether an increase in household wealth led to changes in energy use. While households consumed significantly more energy after the asset transfer, they did not reduce their use of dirty fuels.

Researchers evaluated the impact of a program that provided additional textbooks to primary schools in Kenya on students, teachers, and overall learning. This study found no evidence that textbook provision increased average test scores, or that it reduced either grade repetition or dropout rates.

Smoking and drinking are two of the most important risk factors explaining early mortality, accounting for an estimated 14 percent of deaths among youth worldwide. In the Dominican Republic, researchers examined the effect of increased schooling and decreased work on smoking and drinking behavior among secondary school-aged boys. Youth with more schooling were much less likely to smoke at age 18 and began drinking at a later age, although by age 18 they drank just as much as boys with less schooling.

In Mexico, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the effect of providing plot-specific or general soil quality analyses and input recommendations, agricultural extension services, and flexible or inflexible in-kind grants on smallholder farmers’ adoption and knowledge of improved practices and fertilizer combinations, yields, profits, and attitudes toward innovation. In the short run, they did not find differences on farmers’ fertilizer adoption when comparing specific and general input recommendations, nor when comparing flexible and inflexible in-kind grants. However, farmers with greater grant spending flexibility had substantially higher adoption of improved practices two years after the intervention ended.

Researchers partnered with CNS to investigate whether requiring clients to sign a non-binding agreement to save a predetermined amount of each remittance received could increase saving.

In partnership with the Latvian tax authority, researchers tested several types of emails to investigate the effect of behaviorally-informed messages on tax compliance. Messages that aimed to deter bad behavior by highlighting taxpayers’ moral obligations towards action increased on-time tax declaration submissions. In contrast, messages meant to induce social pressure did not increase on-time compliance, though they increased overall submission rates (i.e., the submission of on-time as well as late declarations).

Researchers analyzed the effect of reducing barriers to saving in rural Malawi on savings behavior, investment in agricultural inputs, and consumption. They found that farmers with access to formal savings accounts preserved greater amounts of savings throughout both the harvest and planting seasons.

Recent studies have shown that a psychology-based entrepreneurial mindset training can have promising effects on business outcomes. In Ecuador, researchers are evaluating whether these skills can be taught at scale and online by testing the effects of an entrepreneurial mindset training program on youth education and employment outcomes. They are also investigating if and how the effects change when the program is paired with mentoring.