Blog

News

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.

Community Engagement’s Impact on Healthcare Utilization and Health Insurance Enrollment in Ghana

Stephen Kwasi Opoku Duku
Christine Fenenga
Wendy Janssens
Edward Nketiah-Amponsah
Researchers in Ghana evaluated the impact of community-led assessments on health insurance enrollment as well as healthcare and health insurance quality. The community engagement intervention improved the medical quality of healthcare, reduced community members’ chances of getting sick, and...

The Impact of Quality Upgrading and Market Access on Farmers’ Productivity and Profits in Uganda

Selene Ghisolfi
Frances Nsonzi
In western Uganda, researchers conducted a series of randomized evaluations that assessed the impact of introducing a combination of post-harvest services, training on agricultural best practices, and access to a market for high-quality maize on farmers’ productivity and profits. Researchers found...

Menstruation and Education in Nepal

Emily Oster
Researchers introduced a convenient and hygienic sanitary product, reusable menstrual cups, to Nepalese girls in the seventh and eighth grades. Their evaluation addressed several questions: Is menstruation as large a barrier to education as many believe? Does switching to modern sanitary products...

Can Informational Campaigns Raise Awareness and Local Participation in Primary Education in India?

Rukmini Banerji
Stuti Khemani
Researchers examined whether increasing community oversight and participation could improve education outcomes in Uttar Pradesh, India. Mobilizing community members to monitor local schools through Village Education Committees did not increase participation in school governance or improve education...

Contraceptive Adoption, Fertility, and the Family in Zambia

Researchers used an evaluation that varied whether women were given access to contraceptives alone or with their husbands to examine the effect of male involvement in family planning on fertility outcomes. Women who received private access to vouchers for contraceptives were more likely to take up...

Demand for Rainfall Insurance in India

Xavier Giné
Daniel Stein
Jeremy Tobacman
Petia Topalova
Robert Townsend
James Vickery
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test 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...

Responses to Degree of Control over Remittances in El Salvador

Researchers partnered with Banco Agrícola to conduct a randomized evaluation that offered a way for Salvadoran migrants to directly channel some fraction of their remittances into savings accounts in El Salvador. Results indicate that a desire for control over remittance uses—in particular the...

Edutainment Campaigns to Address Social Norms and Perceptions about Child Marriage in Indonesia

Milda Irhamni
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of an entertainment-education short film informational campaign (i.e. edutainment campaign) designed to inform adolescent girls and parents of the costs of child marriage on the norms and perceptions about child marriage in Indonesia...