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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.

Group Lending versus Individual Lending in Mongolia

Britta Augsburg
Emla Fitzsimons
Ralph De Haas
Heike Harmgart
Researchers compared the impacts of providing group- or individual-liability loans to women in rural Mongolia. Access to group loans increased business ownership and food consumption among poor women, while individual loans had no effect on these outcomes.

Using Deliberative Electoral Strategies to Overcome Clientelism in Benin

Town hall meetings in Benin reduced the ability of the most popular presidential candidate in that village to garner political support using clientelist tactics, and still appear to be effective for motivating people to attend the polls.

The Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes in the United States

Julie Berry Cullen
Steven Levitt
School choice programs offer students more opportunities to attend schools with higher achievement and graduation levels. In partnership with the Chicago Public Schools, researchers examined the effects of a school choice program on several traditional student achievement outcomes. They used a...

Building Trust in Fertilizer Quality Among Farmers in Tanzania

Annemie Maertens
Researchers conducted an evaluation to test the impact of an information campaign about fertilizer quality on farmers’ beliefs and their purchase and use of fertilizer. The information campaign led farmers to change their beliefs about the quality of fertilizer available in local markets and to buy...

Selective Trials for Agricultural Technology Adoption and Experimentation in Kenya

Catlan Reardon
Erik Snowberg
Researchers are investigating how important these differences are when it comes to increasing the use of irrigation pumps in western Kenya, and whether subsidies for experimentation can be targeted based on certain skills or traits to more effectively increase technology adoption.

Training Teachers in Curiosity-Based Science Pedagogy in India

Ariel Gomez
Vinay Jha
Santosh Kumar
Sandeep Kumar
Soham Sahoo
Despite making great strides in expanding access to education, developing countries like India continue to lag in measures of actual student learning. To understand how quality of education mediates learning, this randomized control trial evaluates a pedagogical intervention training science...