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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.

Providing Endowments to Improve Bargaining Outcomes for Microentrepreneurs in Ghana

Gisella Kagy
Lena Song
Researchers randomly provided more or less cash to garment-making firm owners in Ghana before a bargaining game to evaluate the impact of endowment on the negotiated sale price of a good. Owners of garment-making microenterprises with lower household liquidity agreed to lower sale prices during the...

Improving Governance Through Biometric Authentication and Secure Payments in India

In India, a biometrically authenticated payment system reduced corruption and substantially improved the delivery of government social assistance programs despite partial implementation.

Housing Lottery to Increase Demand for Formal Government Housing and Improve Welfare in Ethiopia

In low- to middle-income countries around the world, nearly one billion people lived in urban informal settlements as of 2018. Rapid urbanization in most large African cities has led to both more people and a higher proportion of people living in informal settlements over time. Researchers conducted...

The Role of the VAT for Tax Enforcement

The Value Added Tax (VAT) system, which generates a paper trail on transactions between firms, facilitated tax enforcement by spreading the impact of enforcement measures up the production chain in a study with over 400,000 firms in Chile.

Financial Education vs. Access to Finance Among Filipino Migrants

Paolo Abarcar

International remittances are an important financial tool for many developing countries, and many organizations offer financial products or financial education services to help families manage the remittances they receive. Researchers provided families with financial products and financial education...