Researchers aim to identify which firms can benefit from engaging with and advertising on digital advertising platforms, to explore the reasons why they may not already be doing so, and to test whether input-based versus results-based approaches are most cost-effective for policy.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation that introduced an adaptive targeted treatment assignment methodology to measure the impact of providing different types of job search assistance on job search rates and labor outcomes for Syrian refugees and local jobseekers in Jordan. While none of the interventions had an impact on whether participants were in wage employment after six weeks, a small cash transfer had large impacts on refugee employment and earnings two and four months after the intervention.

To promote export diversification, the Tunisian government is implementing a $22 million export matching-grant scheme, TASDIR+. TASDIR+ aims to increase exports and promote export diversification toward higher value-added exports and new markets. This study is using a randomized controlled trial to evaluate TASDIR+’s traditional matching grant scheme and a newly implemented rebate scheme.

In collaboration with Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity (MoSS), researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of providing women with childcare subsidies and employment services on their employment and empowerment outcomes, as well as their children’s cognitive and socioemotional skills.

In the Dominican Republic, researchers are investigating whether financial education and business training can help recipients of CCTs to manage their own finances and ultimately graduate from the program.

In Chile, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the effect of providing free after-school care on women’s labor market outcomes. The program increased women’s labor force participation and employment, and increased the use of daycare for young children who were ineligible for the program, suggesting that women need childcare for all of their children in order to join the labor market.

In Nicaragua, researchers analyzed the impact of a conditional cash transfer program on the distribution of child labor within households. In households that randomly received a conditional cash transfer, older boys and boys who were behind in school spent significantly less time working each week. Girls did not work fewer hours, but their work shifted away from agriculture and towards domestic activities.

Researchers worked with the Government of Nicaragua to evaluate the long-term impact of time-limited CCTs on education, reproductive health, and labor market outcomes. Ten years later, people whose families were offered cash transfers when they were younger children had higher labor force participation and earnings on average than people whose families were offered cash transfers when they were older children.

In order to measure the level of competition among traders in Sierra Leone’s cocoa market, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of delivering subsidies to cocoa traders on prices that traders paid to cocoa farmers. While the bonus payments did not affect the prices paid to farmers, it did lead the traders to more frequently offer credit through advance payments to farmers. These results suggest that Sierra Leone’s agricultural trading sector was competitive, meaning that all traders offered similar prices to farmers.

Researchers evaluated whether offering individuals financial incentives to maintain their HIV-negative status could be an effective HIV prevention strategy in rural Malawi. The conditional cash transfer had no effect on HIV status or on self-reported sexual behavior. The receipt of the cash incentive actually increased the likelihood of risky sex among men but decreased risky sex among women.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation with the Indonesian government that compared self-targeting to automatic screening in the context of a conditional cash transfer program. Requiring households to apply for a cash transfer program in Indonesia discouraged rich households from seeking out benefits and identified a relatively poorer group of beneficiaries.

In rural Mexico, researchers examined whether conditional cash transfers (CCTs) protect families against income shocks and promote investment in children's education.

In Nicaragua, researchers compared the cognitive and health outcomes of boys whose families received conditional cash transfers in the first three years of their lives to those who received the transfers later. Exposing boys to the program during the first 1,000 days of life led to better cognitive, though not physical, outcomes seven years after the transfers stopped, relative to boys who received transfers slightly later in their lives.