Researchers partnered with Tamweelcom, a microcredit institution in Jordan, to estimate the demand for loans that comply with Islamic law (sharia-compliant loans).

This study evaluated the impact of strongly-worded peer comparison review letters sent to high prescribers of quetiapine by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on prescribing behavior and patient-level outcomes. Researchers found that the letters caused substantial and long-lasting reductions in quetiapine prescribing, with no evidence of negative effects on patients.

Researchers evaluated the effects of a large-scale workplace wellness program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on employee health behaviors, self-reported health status, productivity, and total medical expenditures. The researchers found that financial incentives increased participation in the program, although only to a point.

Researchers studied the impact of a clinical decision support software system on high-cost imaging orders. They found that clinical decision support reduced the number of high-cost scans targeted by the software but did not change the total number of high-cost scans ordered.

Researchers partnered with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California to evaluate the effects of a variety of enrollment schemes in time-varying pricing plans on electricity consumption. Results show that households which were enrolled in time-varying pricing plans by default tended to stick to their default enrollment with only few households choosing to opt-out, suggesting the presence of strong default effects, meaning that people lean toward the course of action requiring the least effort by sticking with a pre-set default option

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of cricket teams in rural India to identify whether team composition could improve intergroup harmony. Collaborative contact between cricket players of different castes reduced prejudice toward members of lower castes and increased cross-caste interaction, while adversarial contact increased prejudice in intergroup interactions.

Researchers worked with existing savings clubs in Kenya to study the effect of two interventions on savings: the provision of communal crop storage devices and the provision of savings accounts earmarked for farm purchases. Researchers find that the products were popular: about 56% of farmers took up the products. Respondents in the maize storage intervention were 23 percentage points more likely to store maize (on a base of 69%), 37 percentage points more likely to sell maize (on a base of 36%) and (conditional on selling) sold later and at higher prices.