Researchers evaluated two approaches to improving the quality of Colombian preschools. Providing additional resources to preschools for materials and new staff did not benefit children’s development and, unintentionally, led teachers to reduce their involvement in classroom activities. However, the addition of teacher training focused on teaching methods offset the negative effects on teacher behavior, improved the quality of teaching, and raised children’s cognition, language and school readiness.

Researchers analyzed outcomes from a previously conducted randomized evaluation to assess the impact of large primary school management reforms in Madagascar on student test scores, and if impacts varied by type of teacher. Results show that the management reforms did not have any impact on student test scores, regardless of teacher type.

Researchers partnered with the tax authority in Belgium to understand what types of messages drive people to comply with their taxes. Results show that simplified messages, as well as messages that highlighted the consequences of non-compliance, induced people to file and pay their taxes sooner. On the other hand, messages aimed at promoting social norms around filing and paying taxes on time, and the social value of public expenditure, had no effects and sometimes even reduced compliance.

In Malawi, researchers tested the impact of a subsidized tree planting program and tested whether allocating contracts randomly or through self-selection resulted in better program outcomes. Self-targeting outperformed random allocation of contracts in terms of tree survival and mitigated increases in land clearing and labor shortages.

Researchers evaluated the impact of making voter registration easier on voter participation by providing information about voter registration and home registration visits. Overall, the results suggest that information and visits can encourage greater participation, particularly among groups that face social and economic barriers to registering and voting.

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 high scores on the verbal portion of the SAT, caused the lower-ability students to perform worse, and actually led them to interact more with other lower-ability students.

An evaluation of a voucher program in urban Malawi found that providing information and reducing the price of circumcision only slightly increased take-up.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of paying workers on a weekly basis or in one lump sum, as well as of receiving payments in contexts with greater temptation to spend, on their spending and investment decisions. Workers assigned to receive lump-sum wages were more likely to purchase a high-return investment, but receiving wages in a tempting market environment had no impact on total expenditure nor spending on temptation goods.

Researchers partnered with SYEP employers to create personalized letters of recommendation for SYEP participants to evaluate the impact of recommendation letters on participants’ educational and employment outcomes after the program. Youth who received the letter of recommendation saw a 3 percentage point increase in employment in the first year after SYEP participation and, over four years, made $545 more than those who did not receive letters of recommendation.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in East Java, Indonesia to investigate the impact of the level and transparency of financial incentives on the take-up of these new banking services. They found that larger incentives caused an increase in take-up, but only when the incentives were not publicized among the community. When incentives are made public, higher incentives instead have no effect on take-up, despite greater agent effort.

In partnership with Nyala Dairy Cooperative, researchers evaluated the impact of offering asset collateralized loans for rainwater harvesting tanks on both credit access for dairy farmers and profitability for the lender. Using the tanks as loan collateral led to higher take-up of loans by farmers without worsening repayment or leading to losses for the lender and also allowed farmers to invest in an agricultural technology.

The ability and integrity of civil servants can have important consequences for the lives of the poor. Researchers analyzed the impact of financial incentives and characteristics of the work environment on attracting qualified applicants to Mexico’s public sector. Offering higher wages attracted individuals with higher previous earnings, higher IQs, and more desirable personality traits. These applicants were also at least as publicly-motivated as applicants that did not receive the higher wage offering.

Researchers worked with a large private school network in Pakistan to evaluate the effects of performance raises on outcomes such as teacher behavior, student learning, and student socioemotional development. They found that, compared to flat payments, performance pay attracted more high-quality teachers. In terms of types of performance pay, those based on objective and subjective measures (supervisor observations and student test scores, respectively) were equally effective at increasing student test scores, but objective performance pay negatively affected student socioemotional development, whereas subjective performance pay had a small positive effect.