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Credit, Change, and Lost Sales: A Field Experiment Among Firms in Kenya

Researchers in Kenya issued a questionnaire to firms which may have made lost sales and profits due to poor change management became more salient. A second intervention more explicitly emphasized the costs of having insufficient change. Highlighting the importance of carrying correct change helped...

Gender, Marital Status, and Labor Market Discrimination in Egypt

Caroline Krafft
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to assess employer discrimination by randomizing applicants' self-described gender and marital status on resumes submitted to prospective employers.

The Role of Mobile Banking in Expanding Trade Credit and Business Development in Kenya

Trade credit, which is usually provided by up-stream suppliers to down-stream firms, can help small businesses to purchase non-perishable goods for resale and free up resources for other uses. However, provision of trade credit may be limited by high transaction costs, up-stream liquidity...

The Impact of Role Models and Technical Assistance on Microfirms in Chile

In partnership with Simón de Cirene, a Chilean non-profit organization, researchers evaluated the impact of providing role models and personalized assistance through various delivery methods on the business outcomes of micro-entrepreneurs. One year after the program ended, household income increased...

The Effectiveness of Encouraging Voter Participation by Inducing Feelings of Pride or Shame

Tiffany C. Davenport
Christopher Larimer
Christopher B. Mann
Costas Panagopoulos
Researchers evaluated whether disclosure of past voting participation had a stronger impact on turnout when it reminded voters of instances in which they previously voted or of instances in which they failed to vote. The results suggest that mailings disclosing past voting behavior had strong...

Combating Vote-Selling in the Philippines

Allen Hicken
Stephen Leider
Nico Ravanilla
Vote-buying and vote-selling can obstruct the democratic process, yet they remain pervasive in many developing democracies. Researchers asked voters in the Philippines to make a simple, unenforceable promise not to accept money from politicians or to promise to vote according to their conscience...

Online Customer Discrimination against Female Workers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Matthew Pecenco
Edward Rubin
Researchers evaluated the impact of gender-based discrimination on female teleworkers’ productivity in online sales interactions with customers in Africa. When a customer chat representative had a female-sounding name, it led to significantly fewer purchases, and slower and more reserved reactions...