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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.

Organizational Barriers to Technology Adoption: Evidence from Soccer-Ball Producers in Pakistan

Businesses may be slow to adopt a new technology even when it offers clear benefits. Researchers introduced a new fabric cutting technology to a randomly selected group of soccer ball manufacturers in Pakistan, but very few firms adopted it. They hypothesized that the most likely explanation for low...

Increasing Tuberculosis Detection through Incentivized Peer Referrals in India

Chintagunta
Mario Macis
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of peer referrals by current patients on the screening and identification of tuberculosis cases in India. Peer referrals and outreach by current patients to identified peers were more effective than health-worker led contact-tracing...

Incentives for Milk Cleanliness and Production Quality for Cooperatives in India

Ashish Shenoy
Much economic activity in low-income countries takes place through cooperative or collective organizations. Researchers in the Indian state of Karnataka conducted a randomized evaluation to study whether collective incentive payments to village cooperatives of dairy farmers could increase milk...

Price Incentives for Groundwater Conservation in India

Nick Hagerty
Researchers partnered with a rural development organization to evaluate financial incentives for voluntary groundwater conservation among smallholder farmers in Gujarat, India.

The Effect of Bureaucrat Performance Scorecards on Service Delivery and Bribes in Bangladesh

Researchers evaluated the impact of performance scorecards on the speed of delivery and the payment of bribes. Results show that the intervention increased on-time service delivery, but did not decrease bribe payments on average; bribes among high-performers increased.

Measuring the Impact of Microfinance in Hyderabad, India

Researchers evaluated the impact of increased access to microcredit on the economic and social well-being of women and their families in Hyderabad, India. They found that microcredit had mixed effects on business activities and little to no effect on women’s empowerment or children’s education.

Improving Immunization Rates Through Regular Camps and Incentives in India

In rural Rajasthan, India, researchers evaluated whether improving access to vaccines via immunization camps could increase immunization rates, and whether additionally offering a non-financial incentive such as lentils could further increase rates. They found that providing incentives alongside...

Adoption of Insecticide Treated Bednets among Poor Households in Orissa, India

Brian Blackburn
Joanne Yoong
Researchers found that providing microloans to purchase ITNs increased ownership and use. However, the impact of these microloans on health was mixed, likely due to insufficient coverage and low usage rates of bednets.