RCT

How has research featured on VoxDev used different econometric techniques? Here are some examples from recent development economics research, offering insights for students, teachers and academics.

A long-run study tracking students nine years after a school financial education programme finds lasting reductions in expensive credit use, improved loan repayment, and a shift towards entrepreneurship. This suggests that well-designed curricula can...

Evidence from a randomised evaluation in Mexico shows that an AI-powered mental health app can improve mental health, daily functioning, and labour market outcomes, while also helping users experiencing more severe psychological distress engage with ...

A field experiment in Colombia found that disclosing the identity-based criteria used to select students for a free training programme reduced enrolment, suggesting that how targeted invitations are framed shapes whether intended beneficiaries actual...

Providing better information about school quality and admissions in a large, centralised school choice system in Ghana improved students’ applications outcomes, but did not increase enrolment – suggesting that information alone cannot resolve the dee...

A land formalisation programme in Benin significantly increased the likelihood that widows – especially those without a son – remained in their villages, offering formal institutional protection where customary norms left women most vulnerable.

The persistence of patriarchal clan-based orders around the world is a serious hindrance to development not least because they constrain women’s emancipation. Drawing on varied empirical evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, we argue that women’s convers...

Delays in public benefit delivery can harm societies' most vulnerable households, but making management-relevant information more accessible to the bureaucrats implementing these programmes can meaningfully improve delivery speeds.

A five-year randomised trial across Tanzania finds that entrepreneurship training delivered to young women before family obligations set in produces lasting income gains, but both economic and reproductive-health programmes unexpectedly increased ear...