Researchers partnered with a large Indonesian Islamic bank to evaluate the impact of sending moral appeals in reminder text messages to late-paying credit card holders. Messages stating that non-repayment of debts by someone who is able to repay is an injustice increased the number of clients meeting minimum payments, proving more effective than substantial financial incentives for repayment.

Researchers evaluated two approaches to improving the quality of Colombian preschools. Providing additional resources to preschools for materials and new staff did not benefit children’s development and, unintentionally, led teachers to reduce their involvement in classroom activities. However, the addition of teacher training focused on teaching methods offset the negative effects on teacher behavior, improved the quality of teaching, and raised children’s cognition, language and school readiness.

Researchers in Uganda assessed the impact of VSLAs on access to financial services, income, food security, and education.

Researchers randomly assigned voting precincts to a campaign spreading information on corruption and public expenditure one week before the 2009 municipal elections in Mexico. Providing incumbent corruption information not only decreased incumbent party support, but also decreased voter turnout and support for the challenger party, as well as eroded partisan attachments. While information clearly is necessary to improve accountability, corruption information is not sufficient because voters may respond to it by withdrawing from the political process.

In Malawi, researchers examined the effect of bundling rainfall index insurance with a credit program on farmers’ demand for credit. They found that bundling insurance with credit reduced the demand for credit, from 33 percent for credit alone to 17.6 percent for the bundled product.

Taking advantage of a federal anticorruption program that randomly assigned municipalities to be audited, the researchers compared the electoral outcomes for mayors in two randomly selected groups of municipalities: those that were audited before and those that were audited after the 2004 election. Publicly released corruption audits reduced reelection rates of corrupt incumbent municipal mayors.

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 analyzed the effect of reducing barriers to saving in rural Malawi on savings behavior, investment in agricultural inputs, and consumption. They found that farmers with access to formal savings accounts preserved greater amounts of savings throughout both the harvest and planting seasons.

In the Philippines, researchers tested several interventions designed to ease informational, job search, and documentation barriers to working overseas. They found that some interventions increased the number of participants who searched for work or acquired passports, but none led to increases in international migration.

Researchers partnered with the Ministry of Agriculture in Mozambique to assess the impact of both vouchers and savings programs on smallholder farmers’ use of agricultural technologies and household well-being. The temporary subsidy for technology adoption increased use of fertilizer and improved seeds, maize yields, and household consumption during and after the subsidized period.

In Bangladesh, researchers evaluated how varying husband-wife dynamics, information, and prices could affect purchases of widely available “improved” stoves, which substantially reduce indoor air pollution. They found that women have stronger preferences for improved stoves than their husbands, but lack the authority to make purchasing decisions. Their findings also suggest that marketing campaigns can prompt initial adoption of unfamiliar technologies like improved stoves, but are less effective in the long run as common experience with technologies grows.

Researchers studied a government-funded conditional cash transfer program to evaluate the impact of family networks on consumption and investment decisions for low-income households in Mexico. Food expenditure increased among both eligible connected households and ineligible households connected to families who were offered the program.

Can monetary incentives induce rural farmers to migrate to cities and pursue seasonal labor opportunities during times of famine?

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of leveraging social networks to disseminate information about two technologies, pit planting and “Chinese composting,” on farmers’ adoption of these methods. Providing performance-based incentives to peer farmers had the biggest effect on technology adoption.