RCT | VoxDev

C’est la Vie! How a popular West African edutainment series changed minds, but not behaviours

A West African TV series in Senegal led to short- and medium-term gains in knowledge and attitudes around violence against women and sexual and reproductive health, though impacts on behaviours were limited, and a podcast version extending content du...

Institutions & Political Economy

Malick Dione Jessica Heckert Melissa Hidrobo Agnès Le Port Amber Peterman Moustapha Seye

Published

12.05.26

How does evidence diffuse through organisations?

Sharing research evidence with senior rather than junior staff significantly raises the chance it spreads through an organisation, but shifting peer beliefs about the evidence has no clear effect.

Institutions & Political Economy

Mahvish Shaukat Andreas Stegmann Mattie Toma

Published

29.04.26

Why bad news is ignored and how to effectively communicate risk

Policies based on providing information rely on people engaging with it. But how can we design effective information campaigns when people are tempted to ignore them? Evidence from India shows that when people perceive that they have control over out...

Health

Anca Balietti Angelika Budjan Tillmann Eymess Alice Soldà

Published

30.04.26

Peer support boosts reproductive agency where vouchers fall short

In rural India, subsidising family planning services gets women to the clinic, but pairing subsidies with a ‘Bring-a-Friend’ voucher changes who accompanies them, reduces stigma, and delivers meaningful gains in contraceptive use.

Health

S Anukriti Catalina Herrera-Almanza Mahesh Karra

Published

21.04.26

Two barriers to household recycling – and how to overcome them

Field experiments in Lima, Peru show that correcting social misperceptions and sending SMS reminders can significantly boost recycling participation.

Energy & Environment

Hanna Fuhrmann-Riebel Ben D'Exelle Kristian López Vargas Sebastian Tonke Arjan Verschoor

Published

24.04.26

How mental health affects women’s labour force participation in Ghana

Among women in rural Ghana, depression and anxiety reduce take-up for jobs outside the home, but have no effect on productivity or earnings when the same job is offered at home – suggesting that work environment is a key barrier to labour market part...

Labour Markets

Leandro Carvalho Damien de Walque Crick Lund Heather Schofield Vincent Somville Jingyao Wei

Published

17.04.26

Can cash and therapy work in conflict settings?

A randomised evaluation of a cash and psychological intervention in Ethiopia shows that the joint intervention is needed to improve both mental health and economic outcomes, but the effectiveness of the combined intervention is attenuated by active c...

Institutions & Political Economy

Melissa Hidrobo Harold Alderman Negussie Deyessa Daniel Gilligan Parthu Kalva Jessica Leight Michael Mulford Heleene Tambet

Published

15.04.26

Reminders to parents can improve student outcomes

A large field experiment in Brazil finds that simply reminding parents to pay attention to school improves student outcomes about the same as sending them detailed, child-specific information – suggesting that informational interventions work largely...

Education

Guilherme Lichand Nina Cunha Ricardo A. Madeira Eric Bettinger

Published

07.04.26

Nudging teachers to underserved schools at zero cost

A zero-cost nudge – simply listing hard-to-staff schools first in an online vacancy platform – significantly increased the share of teachers applying to and being placed in under-resourced schools. The effect appears to be driven by choice overload r...

Education

Nicolas Ajzenman Gregory Elacqua Luana Marotta Anne Sofie Westh Olsen

Published

07.04.26