This paper investigates the immediate and medium-term behavioral response to an emotional trigger designed to affect biases in intertemporal financial decisions. The emotional trigger is provided by a narrative portraying the catastrophic consequences of poor financial choices. Even when people...

Does research add value to aid? Specifically, does impact evaluation research help or hinder the delivery of development projects? This paper analyzes the question by constructing a new data set of 100 impact evaluations and 1,135 projects approved by the World Bank between 2005 and 2011. The...

How should parents be mobilized for education in Africa This study implemented a large-scale field experiment in Angolan primary schools, including three treatments: an information campaign at home, simple parents' meetings at school, and the combination of both. The measures of parental...

Although research has established the importance of state capacity in economic development, less is known about how to build that capacity and the role of external partners in the process. This paper estimates the impact of a typical development project designed to build state capacity in a...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim to alleviate poverty through monetary and in-kind benefits, as well as reduce future levels of poverty by encouraging investments in education, health, and nutrition. The success of CCT programs at reducing poverty depends on whether, and the extent...

This paper is a practical guide for researchers and practitioners who want to understand spillover effects in program evaluation. The paper defines spillover effects and discusses why it is important to measure them. It explains how to design a field experiment to measure the average effects of...