Evaluations
Search our database of 935 randomized evaluations conducted by our affiliates in 81 countries. To browse summaries of key policy recommendations from a subset of these evaluations, visit the Policy Publications tab.
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Finance
Eliminating Behavioral Barriers to Saving through a Tablet App for the Base of the Pyramid in Paraguay
Jeanne Lafortune , Jose Tessada, Liliana Olarte, Viviane AzevedoDespite the benefits of accumulating savings, low-income individuals rarely use formal savings products. Researchers are partnering with a financial institution in Paraguay to evaluate the impact of a range of tablet-based applications, which remind people to save and help them make savings goals, on savings behavior of low-income individuals.
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Health
The Impact of Cash Transfers on Delivery Planning and Maternal Care Quality in Kenya
Margaret McConnell, Jessica Cohen , Claire Rothschild, Ginger Golub, George Omondi, Katherine Lofgren, Margaret KrukResearchers evaluated whether cash transfers and decision-making nudges could help low-income pregnant women in Nairobi, Kenya deliver where they wanted and in a high-quality facility. They found that cash transfers, conditioned on precommitment to a delivery facility, led to more effective birth planning and increased the likelihood that women delivered at higher-quality facilities.
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Political Economy & Governance, Crime, Violence, & Conflict
Deterring Drunk Driving in India
Abhijit Banerjee, Daniel Keniston, Esther Duflo , Nina SinghTo evaluate which strategies are most effective at preventing drunk driving and reducing traffic accidents, researchers evaluated an anti-drunk driving program in India. Overall, the anti-drunk driving program was effective in reducing traffic deaths and accidents, with these reductions driven entirely by police stations that implemented surprise checkpoints. Promising transfers to reserve police for good behavior more than doubled the number of drunk drivers brought to court.
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Health
The Impact of Bundled Payments on Medicare Spending, Utilization, and Quality in the United States
Amy Finkelstein , Jonathan Skinner, Neale Mahoney, Yunan JiResearchers use a randomized evaluation to examine the impact of bundled payments on Medicare spending, utilization, and quality of care for knee and hip replacements, two common and expensive medical procedures.
Education, Gender
Menstruation and Education in Nepal
Rebecca Thornton
, Emily Oster
Researchers introduced a convenient and hygienic sanitary product, reusable menstrual cups, to Nepalese girls in the seventh and eighth grades. Their evaluation addressed several questions: Is menstruation as large a barrier to education as many believe? Does switching to modern sanitary products increase attendance and school performance among girls? Results showed that girls in Nepal missed...
Finance, Health
Extending Health Insurance to the Informal Sector Through Microfinance in Nicaragua
Erica Field, Rebecca Thornton
, Laurel Hatt, Mursaleena Islam, Freddy Solis Diaz, Martha Gonzalez Monada, Anne Fitzpatrick
This evaluation measured the determinants of insurance enrollment as well as the impacts of having insurance for informal sector workers by randomly varying the costs and convenience of signing up for a government health insurance program available to formal and informal sector workers in Nicaragua. Overall, take-up of the insurance and retention rates were low, and enrolling in the program did...
Education, Gender
Incentives to Learn: A Merit-Based Girls' Scholarship Program in Kenya
Approximately 85 percent of primary school age children in western Kenya are enrolled in school, but only about one-third of students finish primary school. Dropout rates are typically higher for girls; in 2001 the 6th grade dropout rate was 10 percent for girls and 7 percent for boys among students in this study’s comparison schools at baseline. This project was introduced in part to assist...
Health
The Demand for and Impact of Learning HIV Status in Malawi
Rebecca Thornton
, Susan Godlonton, Nicole Angotti, Agatha Bula, Lauren Gaydosh, Sara Yeatman, Eitan Zeev Kimchi
While even very small incentives encouraged people to return for their HIV test results, rapid testing in the home had the greatest impact on program take-up. However, for most people, learning status did not substantially change their behavior.
Education
Balsakhi Remedial Tutoring in Vadodara and Mumbai, India
Researchers evaluated the impact of the Balsakhi Program, a remedial tutoring education intervention implemented in schools in Vadodara and Mumbai, India, on student learning. The program significantly improved student test scores in both locations.
Labor Markets
Discrimination in the Job Market in the United States
Researchers examined the level of racial discrimination in the United States labor market by randomly assigning identical résumés black-sounding or white-sounding names and observing the impact on requests for interviews from employers. Results found that résumés with white-sounding names received 50 percent more callbacks than those with black names, indicating that, all other things being equal...