Evaluations
Search our database of 952 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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Featured
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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.
Agriculture, Finance
Finding Missing Markets: An Agricultural Brokerage Intervention in Kenya
Dean Karlan, Nava Ashraf
, Xavier Giné
Smallholder Kenyan farmers export more crops with credit and coordination services, but incomes do not significantly improve.
Agriculture
Rates of Return to Fertilizer: Evidence from Field Experiments in Kenya
Researchers in Kenya collaborated with the NGO International Child Support to measure the returns to different types of fertilizer among local farmers. While results show that all interventions led to increases in yield, rate-of-return calculations indicate that not all were profitable for the average farmer.
Agriculture, Finance
Nudging Farmers to Use Fertilizer: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
Complex implementation and information gaps explain why farmers do not use theoretically profitable fertilizers in Kenya.
Agriculture
Farmer Decision-Making and Technology Experimentation in Indonesia
Rema Hanna, Sendhil Mullainathan
, Joshua Schwartzstein
Providing farmers with data on previously unnoticed factors affecting their crop yields can help them adopt optimal agricultural practices.
Agriculture, Finance
Demand for Rainfall Insurance in India
Shawn Cole
, Daniel Stein, Xavier Gine, Jeremy Tobacman, Petia Topalova, Robert Townsend, James Vickery
In the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, researchers tested how demand for weather insurance responded to different marketing schemes and price discounts. They found that demand was very price sensitive, but that poor understanding of the product, distrust of insurance agents, and liquidity constraints also limited take-up.
Agriculture, Finance
Futures Prices and Risk Hedging in Gujarat, India
David Yanagizawa-Drott, Raghabendra Chattopadhyay, Shawn Cole
, Jeremy Tobacman, Stefan Hunt
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of a crop price awareness program on reducing price uncertainty and promoting forward-looking planting decisions among farmers in India. Results indicate that the training and provision of price information significantly increased awareness, usage and understanding of futures prices, as well as accuracy of price expectations.