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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.

Improving Women’s Labor and Welfare Outcomes through Microfinance in Uganda

Researchers in rural Western Uganda tested whether a microfinance program can help women borrowers switch out of subsistence agriculture to other labor activities, such as entrepreneurship or small-scale trading. While microloans helped women switch into service-based jobs including small-scale...

Teaching Savings Practices to Ugandan Youth

In Uganda, researchers evaluated whether offering financial education or group savings accounts to church-based youth groups increased savings. One year after the intervention ended, they found that total savings and income had increased among youth who were offered financial education, group...

The Role of Financial Incentives in Recruiting Public Sector Employees

The ability and integrity of civil servants can have important consequences for the lives of the poor. Researchers analyzed the impact of financial incentives and characteristics of the work environment on attracting qualified applicants to Mexico’s public sector. Offering higher wages attracted...

Gender-specific managerial training program and firm productivity in Colombia

Researchers are evaluating the impact of providing a gender-specific managerial training program on career advancement prospects for women and workplace productivity.

Recreational Tutoring to Fight Early-Age School Difficulties in France (APFEE)

Dominique Goux
Researchers assessed the impact of a recreational tutoring program on students’ academic achievements and interest for school work provided by the NGO Apfee. Researchers found that children identified as falling behind by their teachers in schools where the tutoring program was offered did not...

The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on Child Labor Allocation in Nicaragua

Ximena Del Carpio
Renos Vakis
In Nicaragua, researchers analyzed the impact of a conditional cash transfer program on the distribution of child labor within households. In households that randomly received a conditional cash transfer, older boys and boys who were behind in school spent significantly less time working each week...

Increasing Women’s Local Political Participation Through Top-Down and Bottom-Up Training in Indonesia

A researcher evaluated the impact of empowerment training for female citizens and training for male council chairs on women's participation in neighborhood associations, known as rukun tetangga (RT) in Malang, East Java, Indonesia.