Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in rural Peru to assess the impact of providing a workshop designed to foster trust in banks on participants’ levels of trust, financial literacy, and saving and account use patterns of cash transfer recipients. Overall, participants who were offered the financial trust workshop demonstrated higher levels of trust in financial institutions and raised savings levels.

Researchers partnered with the Government of Indonesia to conduct a randomized evaluation that tested whether adding questions on flat-screen televisions and cellphone SIM cards to a targeting census would change people’s reporting and actual purchases of those items. The findings suggest that while targeting may cause people to misreport what they own in the short term for some goods, it is unlikely to change people’s decisions about whether to actually purchase those items.

In India, a biometrically authenticated payment system reduced corruption and substantially improved the delivery of government social assistance programs despite partial implementation.

In Vadodora, India, researchers studied the impact of supplementing classroom instruction with computer-assisted learning (CAL) in primary schools. CAL significantly improved student’s math scores, but was less cost-effective than the remedial tutor-based program, Balsakhi.

This study estimated the effect of financial incentives on teacher attendance on students' attendance and math and language levels. The incentives increased teacher attendance and teaching time, and student test scores rose as a result.

Researchers evaluated a mass school-based deworming program in Western Kenya, and found that deworming substantially improved health and school participation of treated children, as well as of untreated children in both treatment schools and neighboring schools. The program reduced school absenteeism by more than one-quarter, and was far cheaper than alternative ways of boosting school participation.

In partnership with International Child Support, researchers designed and evaluated an incentives program that provided salary bonuses to teachers in Kenya based on the performance of their school as a whole on annual district exams. While results show that the incentives program led to an increase in student test scores, researchers believe that this increase was due to improved test-taking strategies and "cramming," rather than an increase in overall knowledge. The program did not have an impact on test scores in the long-run.

Researchers tested the influence of the (randomly chosen) rate at which clients were told contributions to their Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) would be matched on the amount contributed to their retirement savings accounts. They found higher matching rates significantly increased IRA participation and contributions.

Researchers examined the impact of an initiative to promote savings, through financial incentives, reminders, and messaging, on the savings behavior of the urban poor in Peru. Preliminary results found that the initiative increased the probability that clients reached their savings goals; negatively framed messages appear to be more effective than positive messages in getting people to save.

This study evaluated the impact of subsidies and two different marketing messages on the take-up of insecticide-treated bed nets by rural households. Take-up did not vary with the framing of marketing messages but was highly sensitive to changes in price. Gaining access to a highly subsidized bed net in the first year also increased households’ willingness to pay for an additional net a year later.

Researchers investigated the impact of the price of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) on usage and demand in Kenya. Researchers found that cost-sharing considerably dampened demand, and those who were left out under a cost-sharing scheme had very high usage rates when they could access the product for free. Because there are social health benefits from achieving a certain ITN coverage rate, the results suggest that free distribution of ITNs is both more effective and cost-effective than cost-sharing.

Following the implementation of a policy mandating lower-caste representation in some local village councils in India, researchers evaluated how lower-caste presidents invested in and distributed goods. They found that disadvantaged lower-caste groups received more public goods in councils with an elected leader from their own group.

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 simply participating and observing outcomes in the program did not change key input choices in the production of seaweed. Instead, farmers changed their practices only after they were presented with summaries on results from the program.

Career counseling for young, college-educated job seekers in France helped them find work sooner, but this improvement came at the expense of jobs for those who did not receive counseling, and it did not translate into a long-term increase in employment rates.