In partnership with Melchia Investments, a private Ghanaian technology company, researchers are conducting a pilot randomized evaluation to identify the effectiveness of a new tax collection technology in increasing property tax revenues for local governments.

Researchers are evaluating the impact of providing different types of information about the health risks of Covid-19 on individuals’ risky behavior among diabetic and hypertensive individuals in Tamil Nadu, India, with special attention to de-biasing over-optimism about personal health risk.

Researchers studied the impact of the gender of communicators on the effects of a program to train farmers to communicate information on agricultural technology to other farmers. While there was no gender gap in communicators’ ability to acquire, retain, and use the information about the technology, other farmers were less willing to learn from female communicators. In spite of this, other farmers learned just as much about the technology and experienced similar farm yields when the communicator role was reserved for women.

Researchers evaluated the effects of introducing price increases during peak periods and also real-time information about electricity usage to residential customers in the United States. Households that received feedback about usage reduced consumption and individuals were more responsive to pricing events that happened with more advance notice.

In Tanzania, researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of factory employment and different compensation schemes on gender differences in labor market outcomes, taste for competition, and views on social and gender norms.

Re searchers used a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of providing mobile calling credits to low-income adults on well-being outcomes in Ghana. Overall, the mobile credit intervention increased the ability for individuals to meet unexpected communication needs, particularly when delivered in installments, leading to meaningful improvements in mental health and modest decreases to domestic violence.

Researchers randomly provided more or less cash to garment-making firm owners in Ghana before a bargaining game to evaluate the impact of endowment on the negotiated sale price of a good. Owners of garment-making microenterprises with lower household liquidity agreed to lower sale prices during the bargaining process, suggesting that the prior wealth of microentrepreneurs who participate in bargaining may impact how much they are able to earn.

The researcher evaluated the impact of a sexual harassment training on the incidence of sexual harassment, opposite sex relationships, and attitudes and beliefs towards sexual harassment in India. Overall, the training reduced extreme forms of sexual harassment in the short run and intermediate forms of harassment in the long run, likely by changing men’s beliefs about others' attitudes to sexual harassment. The training also reduced opposite sex romantic relationships between classmates.

Across six randomized evaluations, researchers studied the impact of low-cost, low-touch informational interventions, or “nudges,” on take-up of the federal and state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in California. None of the interventions had an impact on EITC take-up, suggesting that information alone may be insufficient to overcome administrative burdens.

In Ghana, researchers evaluated the impact of providing vendors and consumers with information on official mobile money charges and options for recourse for consumers to report being overcharged. The program led to a decrease in misconduct, which in turn facilitated an increase in market activity, firm sales revenue, and consumer welfare.

The researcher conducted a pilot randomized evaluation to test the feasibility of a regular community accountability meeting program and a politician health leadership program, as well as the feasibility of associated data collection activities. Both interventions realized considerable stakeholder participation and engagement, providing a foundation on which to conduct a larger randomized evaluation in the future around the impact of these interventions on health service delivery and health outcomes.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to assess how fact-checks regularly sent to participants through WhatsApp can affect their ability to discern false information, as well as their beliefs and attitudes related to topics subject to viral misinformation, particularly Covid-19. Overall, the intervention improved participants’ ability to detect misinformation and somewhat increased their willingness to participate in Covid-19 safety measures, particularly when the intervention was delivered in the form of a short text or a podcast with empathetic language.

Researchers conducted an evaluation to test the impact of a hand-hygiene edutainment (entertainment education) campaign on handwashing and health in Bangladesh. The campaign improved handwashing and child health but had no impact on hygiene knowledge.

In the context of a recent government policy that reduced costs of formalization, researchers provided information on the formal entry process through workshops and personalized visits to determine the impacts of information on firms’ decision to formalize.

Researchers evaluated whether randomly providing financial support for secondary education could improve economic decision-making in addition to educational outcomes for secondary school students in Malawi. Results show that the intervention improved educational outcomes and economic decision-making, especially among 9th grade students.