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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.

Family Networks, Consumption, and Investment in Mexico

Researchers studied a government-funded conditional cash transfer program to evaluate the impact of family networks on consumption and investment decisions for low-income households in Mexico. Food expenditure increased among both eligible connected households and ineligible households connected to...

A 20-year Follow-Up to an Early Childhood Stimulation Program in Jamaica

Susan M. Chang-Lopez
Sally Grantham-McGregor
James J. Heckman
Rodrigo Pinto
Christel Vermeersch
Susan Walker
Arianna Zanolini

The Effect of Prepaid Postage on Voter Turnout in the United States

Andrew Healy
Neil Malhotra
Melissa Michelson
Allison Carnegie Sovey
Ali Adam Valenzuela
Researchers randomly provided postage-paid envelopes to a subset of permanent absentee voters in San Mateo County, California in order to evaluate its impact on voter turnout. The provision of prepaid postage resulted in no net change in voter turnout because it simultaneously decreased the number...

Providing Vision Screening and Free Eyeglasses in Elementary Schools in the United States

Jongwook Lee
Kristine West
Researchers evaluated the impact on educational outcomes of providing enhanced vision services to low-income elementary school children. Providing vision screening and free eyeglasses significantly increased achievement in two of the three districts studied, while screening without the provision of...

Randomized Evaluation of the Nurse Family Partnership in South Carolina

Farah Allouch
Samuel Ayers
Alyna Chien
Rebecca A. Gourevitch
Michele R. Hacker
Michelle Woodford Martin
Nicolas Perreault
Slawa Rokicki
Chloe Zera
Annetta Zhou
Researchers are evaluating the impact of an intensive nurse home visiting program for low-income mothers on pregnancy and birth outcomes, child health and development, and future life-courses for the family. The program had no effect on adverse birth outcomes or prenatal outcomes such as health care...

Improving Access to Information to Facilitate Moves to Opportunity

Researchers added school-quality information onto housing listings on the AffordableHousing.com (formerly GoSection8) website, the largest provider of housing listings for HCV recipients, to evaluate the impact on families search for housing and their residential locations. The researchers found...

Weekday vs. Weekend Text-Based Parenting Support in the United States

Kalena Cortes
Hans Fricke
David Song
Ben York
In Texas, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of text message-based parenting support delivered at different times of the week on young children’s literacy and numeracy development. They found that text messages delivered on weekends were best for supporting children...