Researchers collaborated with Uber in Egypt to assess the impacts of expanding access to its ride services through price on the demand for ride-hailing and overall consumer mobility. Lowering the price of ride-hailing services increased people’s use of Uber and overall consumer mobility.

In partnership with three microfinance institutions (MFIs), researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of providing loans, cash grants, or in-kind grants on microentrepreneurs’ business decisions, outcomes, and overall welfare. All three types of capital assistance led to increases in business and economic outcomes, especially for women. Impacts were concentrated among the best-performing recipients of each type of assistance, and researchers found that observable characteristics were the same among those top-performers across all three groups. This suggests that personal characteristics are more important than the type of assistance in predicting the effectiveness of capital assistance.

Researchers examined the medium-term impacts of a large-scale CCT program on health, education, and economic outcomes in Indonesia. Six years following the introduction of cash transfers, the program resulted in reductions in stunting, increased rates of childbirth in the presence of trained birth attendants, and increased school enrollment.

Researchers evaluated the impact of Chile’s national Skills For Life (SFL) program for disruptive students on their behavior and academic outcomes. Researchers found that the SFL program did not impact eligible students’ learning outcomes.

Researchers will conduct a randomized evaluation to test the impact of different types of notifications on rates of failure to appear in traffic and criminal misdemeanor courts.

Researchers are partnering with the Government of Niger to evaluate the impact of empowerment clubs providing adolescents girls with life skills trainings; gender norms clubs designed to change gender-related norms among young men; or both clubs implemented in the same villages on gender norms and women’s empowerment outcomes.

As of 2016, an estimated 151.6 million children aged 5 to 17 were engaged in child labor globally. For low-income households, economic shocks such as expensive accidents or illness are important determinants of child labor, as parents might have to send children to work for additional income. Researchers partnered with the National Rural Support Programme Insurance in Pakistan to introduce expanded health insurance services and evaluate the impact of insurance on child labor. The expanded insurance package reduced both the likelihood that children were working in a hazardous occupation and child labor earnings, especially for boys.

In Uganda, researchers working with USAID are conducting a randomized evaluation to better understand the effectiveness of several variants of a graduation program focused on improving nutrition and self-reliance among populations in and around a refugee settlement.

Researchers are adapting and scaling this seasonal credit product in partnership with a private sector company to evaluate the impact on household wellbeing, consumption patterns, wages, and company profitability in Zambia’s Lusaka, Central, Southern, and Eastern provinces.

Microenterprises often struggle to survive and grow after their initial start-up. A key issue for policymakers is understanding how to best encourage the survival and growth of resource-constrained firms by using policy tools like unrestricted cash grants and conditional transfers of materials or equipment. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of male- and female-owned firms in Ghana to identify and distinguish the impacts of cash and in-kind transfers on the profits of microenterprises. Results indicate that the impacts of cash and in-kind transfers vary according to firm size, profitability, and gender, where female-owned, high-profit firms experienced substantial growth with the support of in-kind grants.

Researchers are partnering with a leading mobile network operator to investigate how the internet affects financial and economic outcomes, particularly for women.