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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.

The Effect of Financial Incentives on Elementary School Test Scores in the United States

Researchers studied whether financial incentives offered to elementary school students could increase standardized test scores. Students who were eligible to win gift certificates had higher math scores and read more.

The Impacts of Gender Norms and Women's Relationship Status on Career Ambitions in the United States

Researchers evaluate whether single women exhibit these tendencies in an elite US MBA program by testing whether students reported different ambitions privately and publicly, or if their responses varied when the audience was largely male. Researchers found that when they expected their answers to...

The Impact of Case Management on Community College Persistence and Graduation in the United States

At a community college in Fort Worth, Texas, researchers evaluated a comprehensive case management program called Stay the Course, which included mentoring and emergency financial assistance (EFA), and measured the impact of these services on students’ academic outcomes, including persistence in...

Role of Conditional Cash Transfers in Early Childhood Development in Mexico

James Manley
Lynnette Neufeld
There is substantial evidence that, in the short-term, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs improve health and nutritional outcomes for young children. Researchers studied the effects of a CCT program in Mexico, which required school attendance and preventive medical care, on child health and...

The Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes in the United States

Julie Berry Cullen
Steven Levitt
School choice programs offer students more opportunities to attend schools with higher achievement and graduation levels. In partnership with the Chicago Public Schools, researchers examined the effects of a school choice program on several traditional student achievement outcomes. They used a...

Preventing Youth Violence and Dropout in the United States

Roseanna Ander
Philip J. Cook
Kenneth Dodge
George Farkas
Harold Pollack
Anuj Shah
Laurence Steinberg
In the United States, researchers evaluated the impact of a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program designed to teach high-risk male students in secondary schools to regulate harmful, automatic behaviors. Results demonstrated that the program led to a significant drop in arrests per student...

Identifying Effective Teachers in the United States

Daniel McCaffrey
Trey Miller
Researchers evaluated how well different measures of teacher effectiveness predicted student performance in six school districts in the United States. Measures of teacher effectiveness based on student achievement in the previous year, classroom observations, and student surveys accurately...

Time Inconsistency and Saving among Low-Income Tax Filers in the United States

Present-biased preferences, or the tendency to value immediate rewards over greater benefits in the future, may contribute to persistent poverty, preventing low-income households from accumulating savings, making investments, and rationing their resources over time. However, there is little rigorous...