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Researchers evaluated whether the ethnicities of wholesale buyers and sellers in Chennai, India, affected the transaction terms. They found that traders offered lower prices to buyers of the same ethnicity, but not necessarily because they trusted them more.

Researchers evaluated the impact of additional investments in agriculture on income for subsistence farmers. In rural Mali, giving some farmers unrestricted cash grants led to significantly higher productivity and profits, suggesting farmers would invest more in their farms if they had more capital.

In South Africa, researchers evaluated whether people have enough information to identify reliable borrowers among their peers and if they can help enforce loan repayment. They found that when given incentives, peers were not effective at screening for creditworthiness, but they were effective at...

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether reducing information disparities by giving access to critical market information through a mobile phone platform would improve traders’ profits and decrease incidences of corruption and bribery. Access to the mobile phone platform...

Youth unemployment—an acute problem in Sub-Saharan Africa—can have long-term negative implications, both on individuals’ quality of life and on broader socio-economic development outcomes. A lack of necessary skills is often cited as contributing to high unemployment, and there is little evidence on...

Increasing levels of migration to the European Union have created significant challenges for governments to ensure migrants fully integrate and thrive in their host societies, but there is little rigorous evidence that evaluates current programs that promote social inclusion. Researchers are...

In Ethiopia, researchers tested whether linking microcredit and family planning services could increase contraceptive use more than either program in isolation. Neither the linked program nor the isolated programs had any detectable impact on contraceptive awareness, use, or intention to use.