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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.

Training Informal Healthcare Providers to Improve the Quality of Care in India

Informal healthcare workers with little to no training provide more than 70 percent of all primary care in rural India. In this study, researchers evaluated the impact of a nine-month training...

The Effect of Academic Achievement Awards on College Success in Canada

Joshua Angrist
Tyler Williams
Researchers examined the impact of a program that offered financial merit awards combined with academic support services on the learning outcomes of Canadian university students. Results suggest that the impact of such incentives was modest.

Peer Effects and Financial Decisionmaking in Brazil

Florian Ederer
Noam Yuchtman
Researchers tested the independent impact of two channels, social learning (when someone purchases an asset after a peer expresses a desire to purchase the same asset) and social utility (when someone feels he can gain more from an asset because his peer owns it), on financial decisions in Brazil...

Evaluating the Socioeconomic Impacts of Western Seed's Hybrid Maize Program in Kenya

Samuel Bird
Travis Lybbert
Mary Mathenge
Timothy Njagi
Emilia Tjernstrom
Researchers are using Western Seed Company's expansion into new areas to evaluate the socio-economic effects of the hybrid maize program in Western and Central Kenya.

Expanding Financial Access Via Credit Cards: Evidence from Mexico

Sara G. Castellanos
Diego J. Jiménez Hernández
Researchers leveraged data from a randomized evaluation conducted by a large bank in Mexico to test the impact of varying credit card contract terms on loan default, card cancellation rates, and bank revenue for first-time formal sector borrowers. Variations in the interest rate and minimum payment...

The Effect of Financial Incentives on Elementary School Test Scores in the United States

Researchers studied whether financial incentives offered to elementary school students could increase standardized test scores. Students who were eligible to win gift certificates had higher math scores and read more.