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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.

The Role of Information and Preferences in School Choices in Romania

Robert Ainsworth
Rajeev Dehejia
Miguel Urquiola
In this randomized evaluation in Romania, researchers compared the roles of preferences and information in households’ decision-making, with regard to high school selection. Results suggest that households provided with information on school quality tend to choose schools that have a greater...

Information Campaigns to Increase Mobile Banking Adoption in Ghana

In Ghana, researchers worked with a bank that provides services to low-income customers with limited access to mainstream banking to evaluate the impact of sending pre-recorded informational voice calls and text messages on the adoption of mobile banking. Clients that received messages encouraging...

Increasing the Demand for Workers with a Criminal Record in the United States

Workers with criminal records face substantially lower chances of securing employment compared to similar workers without such records. Researchers evaluated the effectiveness of different approaches, including wage subsidies, crime and safety insurance, past performance reviews, criminal record...

The Impacts of Computer-Based Individualized Instruction on Math Learning in India

Andreas de Barros
Alejandro Ganimian
In partnership with an education assessment firm, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to isolate the impact of computer-based individualized instruction in India. After nine months, lower-performing students in grades six to eight learned 22 percent of a standard deviation more in math if...

Peer Effects, Alcohol, and College Roommates in the United States

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of having a roommate who drank alcohol frequently before college on college students' grade point averages (GPAs). Results show that, while female students' GPAs were not affected by their roommate's drinking prior to college, male...

Rates of Return to Fertilizer: Evidence from Field Experiments in Kenya

Researchers in Kenya collaborated with the NGO International Child Support to measure the returns to different types of fertilizer among local farmers. While results show that all interventions led to increases in yield, rate-of-return calculations indicate that not all were profitable for the...

The Impact of Information Provision on Farmer Decision Making in Indonesia

Joshua Schwartzstein
In Indonesia, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation with seaweed farmers to observe both the impact of participating in a program that determined optimal seaweed production methods and receiving summarized results of the program on the adoption of optimal farming inputs. They find that...

Reducing Anemia Through Iron Fortification of Grain in Udaipur, India

Researchers in Udaipur, India, evaluated the impact of a village-level iron fortification program on the physical health of local families in 134 villages. Despite high take-up rates at the beginning of the study, overall take-up rates fell by the end of the evaluation. Results showed a significant...