Researchers evaluated the effects of introducing price increases during peak periods and also real-time information about electricity usage to residential customers in the United States. Households that received feedback about usage reduced consumption and individuals were more responsive to pricing events that happened with more advance notice.

Rapidly rising health care costs in the United States have generated interest in identifying effective ways to improve the quality of care delivery and reduce waste within the health care system. In this study, researchers evaluated the impact of a care management program that provides medical and social assistance to individuals with complex needs who incur high health care costs.

In collaboration with China’s National Environmental Inspection Program, researchers are evaluating the impact of reporting firms’ hourly emissions data to environmental inspectors on the likelihood of firms being inspected, local air pollution, local economic output, and health outcomes.

Researchers evaluated the effect of the framing of potential investment options on people's investment in life annuities. They found that individuals were more likely to prefer an annuity when their options emphasized future consumption, rather than framing options in terms of investments. These preferences were revealed in hypothetical, but realistic, scenarios.

Researchers partner with a rural development organization to evaluate financial incentives for voluntary groundwater conservation among smallholder farmers in Gujarat, India.

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 provided payday borrowers in the United States information about the true costs of payday loans in order to find out whether they would respond by changing their demand for the product. Better informed individuals reduced their demand significantly, suggesting that getting consumers to think more broadly about the decision to take up a payday loan may result in a reduction in the amount of payday borrowing.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of a crop price awareness program on reducing price uncertainty and promoting forward-looking planting decisions among farmers in India.

Researchers worked with Bank Rakyat Indonesia and the Microfinance Innovation Center for Resources and Alternatives to measure the impact of incentives and financial education on savings account take-up. Results indicated that the financial education program was not an effective tool for promoting the use of bank accounts, but modest financial subsidies did increase the share of households that opened a formal savings account. Overall, these results suggest that take-up of formal financial services may be more easily achieved through measures designed to reduce the price of financial services, rather than through large-scale financial literacy education.

Labor movements can improve workers’ lives but face great difficulty in getting workers to agree on common goals and take collective actions. In garment factory workers’ group discussions on minimum wage policies in Myanmar, researchers randomly included union leaders to study whether the presence of union leaders affected workers’ preferences and behavior. Union leaders’ presence at group discussions increased the degree of agreement between the workers’ and unions’ preferred wage levels, and made it more likely that workers participated in a subsequent group activity, suggesting that union leaders both helped form workers’ consensus and motivated them to take collective actions. Researchers found evidence that union leaders’ influence on these outcomes came from the leaders’ ability and skills rather than formal title or social ties.

In Malawi, researchers analyzed whether fingerprinting borrowers from a microfinance institution would have an effect on repayment rates. Using fingerprinting for loan enforcement increased repayment by 40 percent among Malawian farmers with the highest default risk.

Researchers examined whether small incentives and short-term goals could encourage Colombian loan officers to stop procrastinating. Under the new incentive structure, loan officers spread their work more evenly throughout each month, and they met a much greater percentage of their monthly targets.

Researchers partnered with the Bavarian State Opera House in Germany to evaluate the impact of a variety of communications strategies on the frequency of donations. They found that including a pre-filled bank transfer form in the letter substantially increased the response rate, perhaps because this lowered the effort required to make a donation. Providing non-responsive donors with a reminder to donate also proved relatively effective, but featuring slogans prominently on envelopes had no effect.