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.

Giving effective information to fight COVID-19

Sergio Bautista
Martin Lajous
Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of public health messages on hand washing and compliance with government mandated guidelines in Mexico.

Providing Job Search Information to Improve Job Seekers' Employment and Earnings in Germany

Steffen Altmann
Florian Zimmermann
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of providing recently unemployed individuals informational brochures about job search strategies that motivated an active search on their labor market outcomes. Providing informational brochures improved the employment and earnings of...

The Impact of Mask Distribution and Promotion on Mask Uptake and Covid-19 in Bangladesh

Jason Abaluck
Jade Benjamin-Chung
Neeti Zaman Bintee
Emily Crawford
Muhammad Maqsud Hossain
Ellen Bates Jefferys
Alamgir Kabir
Laura H Kwong
Shadman Rahman
Shabib Raihan
Hasan Mahmud Reza
Ashley Styczynski
Peter J. Winch
Researchers partnered with Innovations for Poverty Action and Bangladeshi policymakers to test various strategies to increase mask-wearing and assess the impact of community mask wearing on SARS-CoV-2 infection rates. They found that a four-part intervention tripled mask usage and increased physical...

Testing the impact of antimalarial discounts on overtreatment in Mali

Carolina Lopez
Researchers varied patients’ information about a discount on treatment for simple malaria and measuring take-up of treatment to identify the factors driving overtreatment. While patient pressure on doctors in response to the discount led to excess prescription of antimalarials, there was no evidence...

The Impact of Poverty Reduction Among New Mothers on Child Brain Development in the United States

Molly A. Costanzo
Nathan Fox
Sarah Halpern-Meekin
Katherine Magnuson
Kimberly Noble
Sonya V. Troller-Renfree
Hirokazu Yoshikawa
Researchers evaluated the impact of poverty reduction via an unconditional cash transfer to mothers on child neurodevelopment. Children in families that received a $333 monthly transfer displayed different brain activity patterns than children whose mothers received only $20 a month.

Matching Small Firms with Apprentice Workers in Ghana

Researchers evaluated the effects of a national apprenticeship training program on the firms that received apprentices. Firms that received apprentices increased their profits as well as employment.

Marketing Effects in a Consumer Credit Market in South Africa (Pricing the Effect of Psychological "Features")

Working closely with a highly profitable consumer lender in South Africa, researchers sought to determine the effects of advertising content, price, and offer deadlines on loan take up. They found the marketing had significant effects on loan take up, but not on loan amount or default rates. Clients...

Interest Rates, Loan Maturity and Demand for Microfinance Loans in South Africa

Researchers tested the assumption of price inelastic demand using a randomized evaluation in South Africa. The results suggest that the demand curves were downward sloping, and steeper for price increases relative to the lender’s standard rates. Researchers also found that loan size was far more...