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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.

Harvesting Rainfall: Experimental Evidence from Cistern Deployment in Northeast Brazil

Distributing water cisterns in northeast Brazil led to fewer requests for private benefits from local politicians and fewer votes for incumbent mayors, who typically have more resources to engage in clientelism. Marco Gonzalez-Navarro and J-PAL's Latin America & Caribbean office are now working with...

School Communication Strategies and School Outcomes in France

In France, researchers evaluated the impact of various school communication strategies designed to encourage parents to participate in their children’s schooling. They found that personalized invitations increased parental participation in school meetings, especially for parents of low-performing...

Financial Training for Mineworkers in South Africa

Jeremy Shapiro
Kartini Shastry
Financial access in South Africa has expanded rapidly in recent years and policymakers have identified financial education as a means to improve financial literacy and inclusion. To test this, researchers evaluated the impact of a financial literacy workshop on miners’ financial understanding...

Using Media to Change Norms and Behaviors in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in Rwanda to examine how important aspects of cultural practice do or do not change in the wake of exposure to media messages delivered through a radio soap opera drama. While the radio program had little effect on changing individual beliefs and...

The Effect of Prepaid Postage on Voter Turnout in the United States

Andrew Healy
Neil Malhotra
Melissa Michelson
Allison Carnegie Sovey
Ali Adam Valenzuela

Powering Small Retailers: The Adoption of Solar Energy under Different Pricing Schemes in Kenya

Kenya, East Africa's largest economy, is struggling with an ageing energy infrastructure and low connectivity to the power grid. William Jack and affiliate Tavneet Suri (MIT) study the impact of off-grid solar power on small retailers in Nairobi.