Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Home
  • People
  • Research
    • Research Projects
    • Working Papers
  • Methods
  • Policy
    • COVID-19
    • Policy Briefs
    • Interventions
  • Events
  • Policy Partnerships

Search

Main navigation

  • Home
  • People
  • Research
    • Research Projects
    • Working Papers
  • Methods
  • Policy
    • COVID-19
    • Policy Briefs
    • Interventions
  • Events
  • Policy Partnerships
  1. Research
  2. Research Projects
  3. Research Projects
Research Projects

Our researchers design and conduct evaluations of programmes with a behavioural and/or psychological focus, targeting issues such as poverty, unemployment, and gender inequality. You can explore the projects our research team and affiliates are working on, grouped into key themes.

To read working papers of completed research, please visit the Working Papers section of the website. 

Labour and Enterprise

Part of CSAE’s research programme on Firms, Farms and Labour, our researchers evaluate interventions designed using behavioural insights which seek to lower labour market frictions and to improve the practices of firms and enterprises.

An Adaptive Targeted Field Experiment: Job Search Assistance for Refugees in Jordan

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.

 

Simon Quinn
Anonymity or Distance? Job Search and Labour Market Exclusion in a Growing African City

In this project, researchers look at the role played by two market frictions - the lack of credentials and expensive travel costs - in limiting the effectiveness of young people's job search.

Simon Quinn
Can Matching on Soft Skills Yield Better Firm-Worker Matches?

Researchers partner with Harambee Youth Accelerator in South Africa to investigate the potential for using skill measures  to determine matches of work-seekers to job opportunities. .

Kate Orkin
Lukas Hensel
  • Load More
Welfare and Poverty

As part of the CSAE's Welfare and Behaviour research programme, we use insights from psychology to design and test interventions that seek to increase welfare and reduce poverty. In addition, we study the relationship between poverty and psychological characteristics (e.g., self-efficacy, mindsets).

Anonymity or Distance? Job Search and Labour Market Exclusion in a Growing African City

In this project, researchers look at the role played by two market frictions - the lack of credentials and expensive travel costs - in limiting the effectiveness of young people's job search.

Simon Quinn
Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia

Researchers examine whether exposure to role models through a video documentary can change individual’s aspirations and their future-oriented investments, such as investments in their children’s education.

Kate Orkin
Stefan Dercon
Giulio Schinaia
Cash and Aspirational Videos in Kenya

Can a psychological intervention enhance the known positive economic effects of cash transfers ?

Mahreen Mahmud
Kate Orkin
Stefan Dercon
  • Load More
Physical and Mental Health

We combine insights from behavioural science, psychology, psychiatry, and economics to develop interventions that address poor health - both physical (HIV, diarrhoea) and mental (depression, anxiety disorders).

Behavioural Activation Therapy Using Digital Tools in Uganda and South Africa

Researchers partner with the organisations BRAC and MRC/Wits-Agincourt Unit to develop and study a way to treat or prevent depression among adolescents in low-resource settings.  

Julia Ruiz Pozuelo
Alan Stein
Income Shocks and Suicides: Causal Evidence From Indonesia

Researchers examine whether positive income shocks, such as poverty alleviation programmes, can decrease suicides in Indonesia. 

Lukas Hensel
Increasing Preventive Health Investments in Kenya

Researchers test whether visualisation and planning interventions can impact preventive health investments.  

Kate Orkin
Publication available
  • Load More
Credit, Savings and Insurance

Through a behavioural lens, we investigate how interventions which address psychological constraints can be used to affect the take up of credit, savings, and insurance products.

Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia

Researchers examine whether exposure to role models through a video documentary can change individual’s aspirations and their future-oriented investments, such as investments in their children’s education.

Kate Orkin
Stefan Dercon
Giulio Schinaia
Cash and Aspirational Videos in Kenya

Can a psychological intervention enhance the known positive economic effects of cash transfers ?

Mahreen Mahmud
Kate Orkin
Stefan Dercon
Cognitive Droughts

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.

Anandi Mani
  • Load More
Gender

Many programmes and policies affect women differently to men. At the MBRG, we investigate whether these differences can be explained by behavioural or psychological differences.

Aspirational Videos and Women’s Empowerment in Kenya

Researchers partner with GiveDirectly to test whether a cash transfer or aspirational video can impact women’s control of household resources or experiences of intimate partner violence. 

Mahreen Mahmud
Emma Riley
Kate Orkin
Education

We examine how educational performance of students can be enhanced through behavioural interventions which target attitudes towards learning and capabilities - from the perspective of parents and children or adolescents.

Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia

Researchers examine whether exposure to role models through a video documentary can change individual’s aspirations and their future-oriented investments, such as investments in their children’s education.

Kate Orkin
Stefan Dercon
Giulio Schinaia
Cash and Aspirational Videos in Kenya

Can a psychological intervention enhance the known positive economic effects of cash transfers ?

Mahreen Mahmud
Kate Orkin
Stefan Dercon
Going to the movies can help you at school: the impact of Queen of Katwe on students' educational attainment.

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.

Emma Riley
Publication available
  • Load More
Governance

As part of the CSAE's Politics and Institutions research stream, we study governance and politics from the behavioural perspective, analysing what determines the choices and actions of voters and citizens.

Cash Transfers and Community Participation in Public Affairs: A Village-Level Randomized Controlled Trial in Kenya

This study investigates how a large, one-off cash transfer from an NGO to the poorest 40% of households in a thousand villages in western Kenya impacts civic engagement and community behaviour. 

Kate Orkin
How Does Providing Polling Information About Electoral Competition Affect Citizens’ Participation, Vote Choices and Engagement?

This project looks at how voters process information from pre-election polls, and examines the effect of different messages on voter turnout, vote choice and election and party beliefs.

Kate Orkin
Brynde Kreft
  • Credit, savings and insurance
  • Education
  • Gender
  • Governance
  • Labour and enterprise
  • Physical and mental health
  • Welfare and Poverty
All Projects
An Adaptive Targeted Field Experiment: Job Search Assistance for Refugees in Jordan

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.

 

Simon Quinn
Anonymity or Distance? Job Search and Labour Market Exclusion in a Growing African City

In this project, researchers look at the role played by two market frictions - the lack of credentials and expensive travel costs - in limiting the effectiveness of young people's job search.

Simon Quinn
Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia

Researchers examine whether exposure to role models through a video documentary can change individual’s aspirations and their future-oriented investments, such as investments in their children’s education.

Kate Orkin
Stefan Dercon
Giulio Schinaia
  • Load More

Let's talk

Contact us

mbrg@bsg.ox.ac.uk

Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter,
Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG, United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1865 614 343

Partners

 

CSAE Logo Centre for the Study of African EconomiesDepartment of PsychiatryDepartment of EconomicsBlatnik school of goverment logo

© 2023 Mind & Behaviour
Legal
  • Privacy policy
  • Accessibility Statement