Researchers are evaluating the impact of a conditional cash transfer and community worker program on beneficiary wellbeing.

A study on parents’ demand for conditionality in a Brazilian cash transfer program revealed that parents are willing to pay to for the conditionality in order to monitor their children’s school attendance.

During periods of high electricity use that strain the grid, electricity customers do not have any reason to conserve because they pay a fixed price per kilowatt hour of power. In this study, the researcher evaluated the impact on electricity usage of a real-time pricing scheme, which charges households different prices throughout the day based on fluctuating wholesale costs. Households charged according to real-time pricing consumed less electricity in response to higher prices, primarily due to lower consumption during peak times.

Entrepreneurs in developing countries face a number of barriers to expanding their businesses and employing more workers, including limited access to credit and other financial services. In Colombia, researchers are investigating whether a regulatory reform that allows small and medium enterprises to use moveable assets as collateral can increase their access to finance.

Microenterprises often struggle to survive and grow after their initial start-up. A key issue for policymakers is understanding how to best encourage the survival and growth of resource-constrained firms by using policy tools like unrestricted cash grants and conditional transfers of materials or equipment. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of male- and female-owned firms in Ghana to identify and distinguish the impacts of cash and in-kind transfers on the profits of microenterprises. Results indicate that the impacts of cash and in-kind transfers vary according to firm size, profitability, and gender, where female-owned, high-profit firms experienced substantial growth with the support of in-kind grants.

Researchers partnered with Thomson-Reuters to evaluate whether receiving information through SMS messages generated economic benefits for farmers in India. Results showed no effect of the intervention on prices, crop losses, or cultivation practices. However, increased access to information seems to have influenced the places where farmers decided to sell their output.

Researchers partnered with the consulting firm Ernst & Young to test whether providing tailors in Accra with individualized consulting, a sizable cash grant, or both can facilitate growth. Initially, tailors experimented with investments and management practices, but most learned overtime that these new business strategies were not profitable for their ventures.

In Liberia, researchers examined the short and long-term impacts of introducing alternative dispute resolution (ADR) trainings on the rate at which community members resolved property disputes and the incidence of violence related to those disputes. In the long-run, dispute resolutions became less violent in communities that received the ADR workshops, despite no reduction in the overall incidence of property disputes.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a large, information-only intervention about tax credits and financial aid for college on college application and enrollment. Information about tax credits did not influence reenrollment, reapplication, or enrollment, even for students who had viewed the informational emails about tax credits for college.

Working with the Rwandan Education Board, Educate!, and Akazi Kanoze Access, researchers are examining the impact of a program that trains teachers in Rwanda’s revised secondary school entrepreneurship curriculum on student academic, economic, and labor market outcomes.

Researchers evaluated the effects of a large-scale workplace wellness program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on employee health behaviors, self-reported health status, productivity, and total medical expenditures. The researchers found that financial incentives increased participation in the program, although only to a point.

Uninformed elected leaders or voters can negatively affect political accountability, such as decision-making on what and how public services are delivered to citizens. The researcher partnered with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party in Lahore to evaluate the demand and responsiveness of local politicians to information about their citizens’ preferences.

Researchers are partnering with the Savanna Farmers Marketing Company (SFMC) to evaluate the impact of a contract farming program that encourages the uptake of new technologies on the adoption of high yielding seeds in northern Ghana.

This study examines how reminders to file taxes affect tax filing decisions among low-income individuals who did not appear on a filed tax return. The results of two randomized evaluations demonstrate that one-time reminders increase tax filing—both to claim tax refunds as well as to voluntarily pay balances owed to the IRS.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of school electrification, delivered alongside mixed-language digital educational materials, on student exam scores and pass rates. They found that neither increased electricity access nor learning material in their native language improved students’ academic performance.