Researchers partnered with the Côte d'Ivoire government to measure the short- and long-term impacts of a public works program, along with complementary trainings on basic entrepreneurship and job search skills. In the short term, the program led to a shift toward wage jobs (as opposed to self-employment), higher earnings and savings, and improved well-being. However, most of these effects dissipated in the long-run.

Researchers partnered with Tamweelcom, a microcredit institution in Jordan, to estimate the demand for loans that comply with Islamic law (sharia-compliant loans). Sharia-compliant loans increased the demand for microcredit, and religious individuals were willing to pay more for this product.

Working with a large bank in Indonesia that markets platinum credit cards to high-income customers, researchers designed a series of randomized evaluations to understand the demand for status goods. Overall, researchers found that a substantial part of the demand for the platinum card is explained by the desire to own the prestigious card itself, beyond the tangible benefits and services it comes with.

Though sometimes referred to as “a feature of the welfare state,” some employment and training programs have recently been contracted out to private enterprises. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of public and private employment service providers on labor market outcomes of unemployed university graduates. Overall, researchers found that public and private employment service provision did not differ in their impacts on labor market outcomes. Private providers were less cost-effective and, despite providing more intensive and employment-oriented services, had lower client satisfaction compared to public providers.

Researchers evaluated whether cash transfers and decision-making nudges could help low-income pregnant women in Nairobi, Kenya deliver where they wanted and in a high-quality facility. They found that cash transfers, conditioned on precommitment to a delivery facility, led to more effective birth planning and increased the likelihood that women delivered at higher-quality facilities.

Researchers partnered with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California to evaluate the effects of a variety of enrollment schemes in time-varying pricing plans on electricity consumption. Results show that households which were enrolled in time-varying pricing plans by default tended to stick to their default enrollment with only few households choosing to opt-out, suggesting the presence of strong default effects, meaning that people lean toward the course of action requiring the least effort by sticking with a pre-set default option

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of cricket teams in rural India to identify whether team composition could improve intergroup harmony. Collaborative contact between cricket players of different castes reduced prejudice toward members of lower castes and increased cross-caste interaction, while adversarial contact increased prejudice in intergroup interactions.

Researchers worked with existing savings clubs in Kenya to study the effect of two interventions on savings: the provision of communal crop storage devices and the provision of savings accounts earmarked for farm purchases. Researchers find that the products were popular: about 56% of farmers took up the products. Respondents in the maize storage intervention were 23 percentage points more likely to store maize (on a base of 69%), 37 percentage points more likely to sell maize (on a base of 36%) and (conditional on selling) sold later and at higher prices.

Researchers studied the impact of a summer jobs program in Chicago on crime, education, and employment. The program dramatically reduced violent-crime arrests, including in the following school year, though it did not influence schooling or formal employment, and may have increased property crime in future years. Using a machine learning technique, the researchers find that the youth with the largest improvements in employment are not the disconnected youth usually targeted by employment programs.