Evidence Reports

NBER (May 2025) posted new findings from the Baby’s First Years RCT, studying the effects of providing unconditional cash transfers to low-income, new mothers in the US. This high-quality RCT found no impacts on any of the study’s primary child development outcomes at the four-year follow-up.

The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2024) published an RCT of the Nurse-Family Partnership, a nurse home visiting program for low-income, first-time mothers, as implemented in British Columbia, Canada. This high-quality RCT found no impact on the primary outcome - child injuries - at the age 2 follow-up, but suggestive effects on two secondary outcomes (child language and behavior based on maternal reports).

The Annenberg Institute (June 2025) posted an RCT of Zearn Math, a popular software platform, to support math learning for students in grades 3-5. This high-quality RCT found suggestive (not statistically significant) modest effects on state test scores in math after two years of program implementation.

NBER (April 2025) posted a quasi-experimental study of the effects of state Medicaid expansions on the mortality of low-income adults. Despite the study abstract’s claims of a 2.5% reduction in mortality (covered in NY Times and elsewhere), the study found much smaller mortality effects that fell short of statistical significance in its main preregistered analysis.

MDRC (April 2025) posted long-term RCT results for ASAP Ohio – a replication of the successful CUNY-ASAP program, which provides academic, personal, and financial supports to low-income community college students. This high-quality RCT found a remarkable 15 percentage point increase in degree completion and 14% gain in annual earnings at the eight-year mark.

The Institute of Education Sciences (November 2024) published RCT findings for two pilot initiatives that offered Pell Grants (federal financial aid) to low-income adults for short-term occupational training programs. These high-quality RCTs found sizable impacts on program completion, but no discernible impacts on the hoped-for economic outcomes: employment or earnings, measured approximately 3-5 years after program completion.

MDRC (March 2025) posted RCT results for Viking ROADS – Westchester Community College’s replication of the successful CUNY-ASAP program, which provides academic, personal, and financial supports to community college students. This high-quality RCT found a remarkable 12 percentage point increase in degree completion after three years.

JAMA Ophthalmology (Sept. 2021) published results of the Vision for Baltimore RCT, evaluating a citywide program of free vision screening and eyeglasses in elementary and middle school. Despite the study abstract’s largely positive portray of results, the study found no discernible impacts on its preregistered primary outcomes – reading and math scores on the state test over 1-2 years.

Wested (September 2024) posted an RCT of ASSISTments, a low-cost online tool that assists 7th graders with math independent practice (e.g., homework) and gives teachers real-time reports on student performance. This high-quality RCT found a sizable gain (~31% of a grade-level) in math scores on the state test at 2 year follow-up.