Researchers test whether it is possible to nudge small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to use formal hiring channels and whether an improvement in technology will formalise hiring techniques. 

In this project, researchers examine experimental and natural-experiment evidence on the role poverty plays on cognitive function.

How do meta-beliefs about educational performance affect perseverance and student performance in low-income contexts? We investigate this question in a lab-in-the-field experiment designed to disentangle meta-beliefs about the nature of ability and personal efficacy through video interventions. We study the effects of these interventions on the decision to exert effort, academic performance, and wellbeing among primary school students in Malawi.

A large-scale survey over 58 countries shows a strong association between perceptions of insufficient government response and lower mental well-being from respondents.

In a drought-prone and poor region of Brazil, researchers examine whether low income levels or high income uncertainty affected cognitive performance through attention allocation.

Watching Queen of Katwe, a movie featuring an inspiring role model, improved Ugandan secondary school students’ national exam scores and closed gender gaps in attainment.

We conduct a field experiment in which we offer graduated microfinance clients the opportunity to finance the purchase of a business asset worth four times their previous borrowing limit. We implement this using a hire-purchase contract; our control group receives a zero-interest microcredit contract.

How do people make future choices in settings of uncertainty? We posit that the performance of different strategies stored in the brain can be accessed through mental visualisation (or imagery). We further hypothesise that people who have experienced trauma face greater barriers in undertaking visualisation and hence stand to benefit more from the intervention. To test this theory, we developed a curriculum to teach entrepreneurs in Bogotá how to visualise the likely outcomes of their choices and study the impact of this intervention on their economic and psychological resilience.

This project introduces a novel methodology for treatment assignment, which aims to balance the goals of maximising the precision of treatment effect estimates and maximising the welfare of experimental participants. The assignment algorithm is applied to three interventions designed to improve formal employment outcomes of Syrian refugees and local jobseekers in Jordan.