In partnership with Jacaranda Health, researchers evaluated a family planning program that provided pregnant women with varying combinations of vouchers for free modern contraception and reminders of the importance of family planning. While none of the combinations increased self-reported use of modern contraception in the short term, the combination of the voucher and reminder did increase its use in the medium term.

Researchers examined whether individuals gave more after receiving information about a charity’s impact. They found that providing potential donors with rigorous evidence about a charity’s effectiveness increased the likelihood of giving to a major U.S. charity for large prior donors, but decreased the likelihood of giving for small prior donors.

Researchers evaluated whether the intensity of personalized interaction between borrowers and loan officers in India influenced borrowers’ repayment behavior. They found that clients with personal relationship managers at the bank had better repayment behavior but were not more satisfied with their loans overall.

Despite expanding access to sanitary options such as community toilets, many individuals, especially in urban slums, continue to practice open defecation. One potential explanation is that open defecation has become an ingrained habit. Applying lessons from psychology and neuroscience, researchers are evaluating whether a combination of economic incentives and a marketing campaign can foster a new habit—using hygienic latrines instead defecating in the open—among slum dwellers in Kenya.

In many developing countries, absenteeism, lack of accountability, and corruption among public employees prevent the effective distribution of public services. Researchers examined how performance incentives and increased resources for school principals affected the implementation of a school-based nutrition program targeting anemia in rural China. Large incentives and large block grants individually led to significant reductions in anemia, but when schools received a large block grant, there was no additional effect from adding large incentives.

Researchers evaluated the effect of distributing “value-added” teacher evaluations to principals in New York City. Their findings suggest that principals found the reports useful and used them to inform their overall perceptions of teacher effectiveness.

Skilled immigrants in Canada struggle in the labor market, facing substantially higher levels of unemployment and lower wages than non-immigrants. Researchers randomly manipulated thousands of resumes to measure the effects that foreign experience and having a name of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or Greek origin (all large immigrant groups in Canada) have on callback rates from employers. Resumes with English-sounding names received more callbacks than those with Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or Greek names. Work experience in Canada increased responses for resumes with Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or Greek names, but callback rates were still lower than those with English-sounding names.

Researchers examined whether a simple, inexpensive information campaign could change students’ knowledge and perceptions about post-secondary education. When exposed to an informational video, students who had been initially unsure about pursuing higher education reported expectations of higher returns to a post-secondary degree, lower concerns about costs, and also reported a greater likelihood of enrolling in a post-secondary institution. Students who had already been planning to pursue post-secondary education were more likely to believe they were eligible for grant aid.

Researchers examined the impact of a program that offered financial merit awards combined with academic support services on the learning outcomes of Canadian university students. Results suggest that the impact of such incentives was modest.

Workers without social connections may be disadvantaged in the labor market because employers favor applicants who have been referred. Researchers tested three interventions in an online labor market to investigate why employers are more likely to hire referred workers. First, referrals provide a signal that workers will perform well and have lower turnover. Referred workers outperformed and had lower churn than non-referred workers with the same observable characteristics. This is true even at companies to which they were not referred. Second, being referred makes workers more productive. Referred workers were particularly productive when they work with their referrers. However, workers’ concerns about their reputation with their referrer or their referrer’s position at the firm did not lead workers to exert more effort.

Certified teachers were no more likely than non-applicants to be effective at improving students’ test scores, but were more effective than unsuccessful applicants. Researchers found that estimates of teacher effectiveness based on test scores from previous years were a strong predictor of student achievement.