Evaluations

Researchers are conducting a lab-in-the-field study to measure the impact of a community-driven development program in Bangladesh on participants’ preferences and values about fairness, equity, civic engagement, and participatory decision-making.

Employers often rely on subjective performance evaluations by supervisors to gauge the performance of workers–particularly in the public sector, where civil servants’ work performance is hard to measure. However, relying on the opinions of local supervisors could cause subordinates to prioritize...

In Pakistan, researchers are evaluating the impact of using mobile phones to directly connect politicians with voters and give voters the opportunity to provide real-time feedback to their elected representatives.

Researchers in Indonesia compared the effectiveness of two methods of identifying the low-income households: a community method where villagers ranked households according to perceived wealth, and a proxy-means test which relied on measures of consumption and assets. The community methods of...

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation with the Indonesian government that compared self-targeting to automatic screening in the context of a conditional cash transfer program. Requiring households to apply for a cash transfer program in Indonesia discouraged rich households from seeking out...

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to study the impact of elite capture in a conditional cash transfer program in Indonesia. Elite capture existed in some programs, but the welfare losses created were small, suggesting that improving administrative capabilities in targeting methods might...

Researchers examined the impact of local watchdog journalism investigations on public service provision. Local journalism improved government performance and service delivery, likely by helping central governments monitor bureaucrats at the district-level.

In partnership with the Kasai Central Provincial Tax Ministry in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the researcher conducted a randomized evaluation to identify the direct and indirect effects of varying levels of enforcement on firms’ tax compliance and their likelihood to pay bribes.