Researchers worked with First Valley Bank in the Philippines to evaluate the impact of varying the interest rate and account ownership requirements on demand for commitment savings accounts. While savings account take-up was 23 percent, neither the interest rates nor the ownership requirements affected individuals’ demand for accounts.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether a performance-based repayment contract could outperform conventional microcredit contracts, or fixed-payment loans, in improving business outcomes and welfare for micro-distributors in Kenya. Micro-distributors who received flexible financing, especially a hybrid loan that adjusted payments based on earnings, had higher profits than those with fixed-payment loans. They also restocked more often, expanded their sales areas, managed their businesses better, and repaid more.

Researchers are conducting phone surveys to understand the effects of a community policing intervention on citizens' trust in the state and how that affects their willingness to comply with COVID-19 related measures in Uganda.

Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of providing emergency job retention assistance to firms and workers on firm survival, worker-firm match survival, and labor market outcomes for firm owners and workers in Ghana’s informal sector. Research is ongoing; results are forthcoming.

Manufacturing jobs can improve women’s economic empowerment, but health issues or caretaking often drive women out of the labor force. In partnership with a large garment Banladeshi manufactory firm, researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of text messages about paid sick leave on workers' health and job satisfaction.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of increased access to transportation and assistance with interview scheduling on women’s employment.

Researchers are launching a randomized evaluation to explore the impact of interventions that foster friendships and enhance problem solving skills on the mental health and labor market outcomes of young women working in a garment factory.

Researchers are evaluating the impact of a gender-sensitization training for police officers in Bihar, India, using expressive arts techniques, on police officers’ attitudes towards gender-based violence as well as women’s safety and economic agency.

Researchers evaluated the impact of trainings for brick kiln owners and operators on air pollution, CO2 emissions, and kiln profitability.

Supporting women’s empowerment, the ability for women to control their resources and make their own choices, is a common policy goal both as its own outcome and as a vehicle to drive other change like improving children’s health and education. Many empowerment programs have targeted women’s income generating abilities, though fewer programs have attempted to provide ways for women to retain control over their existing resources. Researchers collaborated with the NGO BRAC to conduct a randomized evaluation to test the impact of encouraging women microfinance clients to make weekly loan repayments with mobile money instead of cash on their wider use of mobile money services and their empowerment. Encouraging women to use mobile money for loan repayment led them to increase its use for repayment and other transactions, like savings, and increased their empowerment; however, it did not increase their business profits or sales.

In partnership with the City of Medellín, researchers randomly introduced a program that intensified government outreach to gang-controlled neighborhoods. The study found no evidence that the city’s intervention reduced gang rule.

Researchers evaluated a secondary school readiness program, Utkarsh, that provided targeted instruction to students in Odisha, India.

It is unclear whether a gender-differentiated intervention may be more effective in reducing some or all types of crime. To better understand this issue, researchers are working with the local police force in two districts in Pakistan to study its effects on trust levels and occurrence of crime.

Researchers evaluated the spillover effects of a nationwide Medicare bundled payment reform on privately insured Medicare Advantage (MA) patients who were not targeted by the reform. They found that the bundled payment reform’s spillover effect on non-targeted MA patients was similar to the bundled payment reform’s direct effect on targeted Traditional Medicare patients.

Researchers in Ghana conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether a program informing students and parents about the secondary school choice process and school quality helped students make more strategic decisions about which schools to attend, and whether these choices led to better educational outcomes for students. Results indicated that increasing parents’ access to this information increased parental involvement in students’ educational choices.