Evaluations

Through a randomized evaluation, researchers examined the effects of partisan mail campaigns on voter turnout in state and municipal elections in Connecticut and New Jersey. Results indicate that partisan direct mail campaigns do little to stimulate voter turnout.

Researchers used Chicago’s school choice program, which uses a random lottery to allocate slots in elementary schools, to evaluate how the opportunity to attend a higher-quality school impacts academic achievement. They found that lottery winners are more likely to attend higher-performing schools...

Researchers, in partnership with the São Paulo Education Secretariat, conducted a randomized evaluation in ninth grade classrooms to investigate the mechanisms driving the effects of communicating with parents on education outcomes.

In partnership with the Government of Jharkhand, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to study the impact of unconditional, framed cash transfers to pregnant women and lactating mothers on child health.

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.

In Kazakhstan, researchers tested whether offering youth community service grants and training impacted their level of community engagement, pro-social behavior, life skills, and labor market outcomes. Engaging youth in civic service and/or training had little to no effect on these outcomes one-year...

Researchers estimated the impact of a microcredit program, which was randomly rolled out in rural areas of Morocco. Thirteen percent of the households in treatment villages took a loan, and none in comparison villages did. Among households identified as more likely to borrow, microcredit access led...

A large charitable organization in the United States conducted a series of direct mail appeals for donations using different identity primes in 2009-2010. Researchers found that priming a potential donor’s identity as either a previous donor to charity or as a member of their local community...