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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.

Donating Time for Democracy: Encouraging Citizen Participation in Electoral Work in Mexico

In this study, researchers are partnering with the national electoral authority to test a range of policy interventions designed to ultimately improve poll workers’ attendance during the 2017 state elections.

Text Messages as Reminders for Antiretroviral Medication Adherence in Kenya

David R. Bangsberg
Markus Goldstein
Jessica Haberer
Sylvester Kimaiyo
Leslie MacKeen
Duncan Ngare
John Sidle
Harsha Thirumurthy
Damien de Walque
Joshua Graff Zivin
Researchers introduced text message reminders to evaluate their effect on Kenyan patients taking their antiretrovirals consistently and not skipping doses. Patients who received weekly text messages were more likely to take their medicine 90 percent of the time and were less likely to skip doses for...

The Demand for Status Goods in Indonesia

Working with a large bank in Indonesia that markets platinum credit cards to high-income customers, researchers designed a series of randomized evaluations to understand the demand for status goods. Overall, researchers found that a substantial part of the demand for the platinum card is explained...

Student Incentive Structures in Malawi

Hyuncheol Kim
Hyuk Harry Son
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of two different performance-based incentives on students’ test scores, motivation, and behavior in Malawi. They find that tournament-style incentives that rewarded the top performers among a large group lowered test scores and student...

Testing Alternative Job Evaluation Schemes to Improve Civil Servant Work Performance in China

Employers often rely on subjective performance evaluations by supervisors to gauge the performance of workers–particularly in the public sector, where civil servants’ work performance is hard to measure. However, relying on the opinions of local supervisors could cause subordinates to prioritize...

The Effects of a Universal Basic Income during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Kenya

Michael Faye
Alan Krueger
Taking advantage of a pre-existing large-scale evaluation of a universal basic income project in Kenya, researchers measured how different types of cash transfers impact recipients’ income, reported well-being, food security, mental health, and social interaction in the context of the COVID-19...

Improving Youth Employment through Job Training and Capital in Egypt

Ahmed Elsayed
Kevin Hempel
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to determine the impact of job training and counseling programs on youth employment in Egypt. The job training programs improved labor market outcomes such as employment rates and income, and sometimes had a positive impact on non-labor market outcomes...