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Browse news articles about J-PAL and our affiliated professors, and read our press releases and monthly global and research newsletters. For media inquiries, please email us.

The Profitability of Fertilizer in Mali

Researchers randomly provided free fertilizer to women rice farmers in southern Mali to measure how farmers chose to use the fertilizer, what changes they made to their agricultural practices, and the profitability of these changes. The fertilizer grants led to increased fertilizer use, use of...

The Impact of Poverty Reduction on Child Health, Nutrition, and Sleep in the United States

Nathan Fox
Sarah Halpern-Meekin
Emma Hart
Alicia Kunin-Batson
Katherine Magnuson
Kimberly Noble
Jessica Sperber
Hiro Yoshikawa
To understand the causal impact of poverty reduction on children’s health, nutrition, sleep, and healthcare utilization, among other outcomes, researchers randomly assigned new mothers to receive an unconditional cash transfer of $333 (high-cash group) or $20 per month (low-cash group) in the Baby’s...

Increasing Public Transportation for Higher Employment and Women's Empowerment in Pakistan

Hadia Majid
Ammar Malik
Kate Vyborny
Researchers are partnering with Lahore Transport Company (LTC), the public vehicle operation regulator, to introduce routes for small vehicles, known as wagons, that feed into a bus rapid transit system and will reserve a portion of wagons for women only. Researchers will evaluate the impact of...

Reducing the Incidence of Vote Buying in Uganda

During the 2016 Ugandan elections, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of an anti-vote-buying campaign to study voter behavior and electoral outcomes. Overall, the campaign did not reduce the extent of vote buying, but it had substantial effects on electoral outcomes.

Vocational Training and Cash Transfers for Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship in Kenya

In Kenya, researchers are studying the impacts of a program that combines vocational training with one-time cash grants to boost youth employment and entrepreneurship.

Enrolling Informal Sector Workers in National Health Insurance in Indonesia

Arianna Ornaghi
Sudarno Sumarto
A key challenge to achieving universal health coverage is that non-poor informal workers are difficult to enroll and retain in government health insurance programs. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of various programs, including subsidies, registration assistance and...

The Impact of Door-to-door Canvassing on Voter Support and Participation in Italy

Enrico Cantoni
Researchers tested whether discussions between candidates and voters can help bridge this gap and increase voter turnout, leveraging a volunteer and candidate canvassing campaign in the 2014 Italian municipal elections. While canvassing by volunteers increased voter turnout, canvassing by political...

Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital among Female Micro-entrepreneurs

Researchers re-examined data from previous studies in Ghana, India, and Sri Lanka to better understand the impact of credit and cash grant variations on micro-enterprise profits. Their results suggest that the gender gap in micro-enterprise performance was not due to ability, but rather to women’s...