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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 Yields and Health through a High-Yielding Rice Variety (NERICA) in Sierra Leone

Improved crop varieties have the potential to produce higher yields than traditional varieties, but rural farmers often do not have the knowledge to properly grow these crops. Researchers seek to understand how providing different amounts of training on how to cultivate NERICA-3, a high-yield but...

The Effect of India's Total Sanitation Campaign on Defecation Behaviors and Child Health in Rural Madhya Pradesh, India

Benjamin Arnhold
Bertha Briceno
Sandipan Ganguly
John M. Colford Jr.
Sumeet R Patil
Alicia L. Salvatore

Peer Group Assignment and Student Achievement in the United States

Researchers evaluated the impact of creating peer groups optimized to improve the academic achievement of lower-ability first-year students at the United States Air Force Academy. Placing lower-ability students in the optimized groups, which mixed them with a relatively large number of peers with...

Impacts of Flexible Loans on Borrower Behavior and Microenterprise Outcomes in Colombia

Lasse Brune
Xavier Giné
Researchers evaluated the impact of a flexible microloan product on new clients' repayment behavior, business outcomes, and client satisfaction. The results showed that the flexible loan led to some shifts in investment behavior but had no average impact on revenue or profits and led to higher...

A Multifaceted Approach to Increase Women’s Empowerment in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Researchers evaluated a multifaceted program for women experiencing extreme poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a region facing protracted conflict. The intervention had positive and enduring effects on women’s consumption, employment, finances, and empowerment, and small positive impacts...

Targeting the Ultra Poor in Yemen

To test this theory, researchers evaluated a multi-faceted approach aimed at improving long term income of the ultra-poor in multiple countries, including Yemen.