Evaluations
Search our database of 969 randomized evaluations conducted by our affiliates in 83 countries. To browse summaries of key policy recommendations from a subset of these evaluations, visit the Policy Publications tab.
Sector
Data Available
Region
Country
Intervention Type
Target Group
Outcome of Interest
Researcher
Research Initiative
Status
Featured
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
Flipcharts, School Inputs and Retrospective versus Prospective Analyses in Kenya
Michael Kremer, Paul Glewwe
, Sylvie Moulin, Eric Zitzewitz
Evidence from Kenyan primary schools suggests that retrospective studies may seriously overestimate the impact of school inputs such as visual flipcharts on learning.
Education
Vouchers for Private Schooling in Colombia
Eric Bettinger, Michael Kremer
, Joshua Angrist, Erik Bloom, Elizabeth King, Juan Saavedra
Colombia used lotteries to distribute vouchers which partially covered the cost of private secondary school for students who maintained satisfactory academic progress. Three years after the lotteries, winners were about 10 percentage points more likely to have finished 8th grade, primarily because they were less likely to repeat grades, and scored 0.2 standard deviations higher on achievement...
Education, Health, Gender
Peer Effects, Alcohol, and College Roommates in the United States
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of having a roommate who drank alcohol frequently before college on college students' grade point averages (GPAs). Results show that, while female students' GPAs were not affected by their roommate's drinking prior to college, male students' GPAs were significantly reduced by being assigned to a roommate who drank frequently...
Education, Crime, Violence, & Conflict
Peer Effects, Diversity, and College Roommates in the United States
Dan Levy, Michael Kremer
, Johanne Boisjoly, Greg Duncan, Jacque Eccles
Researchers in the United States assessed the impact on college students of having a roommate from a different. White students assigned to a black roommate were more likely to endorse affirmative action policies than those assigned to a white roommate. Other factors, such as having roommates from high-income or low-income backgrounds, also influenced students' behavior and attitudes towards...
Education
Teacher Incentives Based on Students' Test Scores in Kenya
Michael Kremer, Paul Glewwe
, Nauman Ilias
In partnership with International Child Support, researchers designed and evaluated a incentives program that provided salary bonuses to teachers in Kenya based on the performance of their school as a whole on annual district exams. While results show that the incentives program led to an increase in student test scores, researchers believe that this increase was due to improved test-taking...
Education, Political Economy & Governance
Decentralization: A Cautionary Tale - Public Finance in Kenya
Michael Kremer
, Sylvie Moulin, Robert Namunyu