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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.

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...

Randomized Evaluation of the Nurse Family Partnership in South Carolina

Farah Allouch
Samuel Ayers
Alyna Chien
Rebecca A. Gourevitch
Michele R. Hacker
Michelle Woodford Martin
Nicolas Perreault
Slawa Rokicki
Chloe Zera
Annetta Zhou
Researchers are evaluating the impact of an intensive nurse home visiting program for low-income mothers on pregnancy and birth outcomes, child health and development, and future life-courses for the family. The program had no effect on adverse birth outcomes or prenatal outcomes such as health care...

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 Impact of a Simple Savings Device on Meeting Planned and Unplanned Expenses in Niger

Markus Goldstein
Michael O'Sullivan
Melita Sawyer
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a savings lockbox, or SMS reminders, on household saving, spending, and the ability to cope with negative shocks in rural Niger. Take-up and usage of the lockbox were high, and while the lockbox intervention did not affect overall...

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...