Featured Project
Does reducing stigma increase the take-up of rental assistance?
Subtle language changes in city communications can decrease stigma surrounding the receipt of rental assistance and increase interest in and application requests for city assistance programs.
Featured Project
Does the presentation of information affect residents’ response to government communications?
Residents are more likely to act on government communications that use a formal tone and appearance, in part because formality acts as a signal for credibility and importance.
Featured Project
What predicts policymakers’ decisions to adopt evidence-based strategies?
Organizational inertia may explain why only about 30% of behavioral interventions tested in field experiments end up being adopted by the city department that tested them.
All Projects
How can we increase the use of housing stability services among tenants at risk of eviction?
The People Lab is working with the City of Boston’s Office of Housing Stability to co-design and test the effectiveness of behaviorally-informed outreach aimed at connecting tenants at risk of eviction to available housing stabilization resources.
Does receiving rental assistance improve housing stability among vulnerable populations?
In collaboration with HOST, we co-designed a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of Denver County’s rental assistance program.
Does reducing stigma increase the take-up of rental assistance?
Subtle language changes in city communications can decrease stigma surrounding the receipt of rental assistance and increase interest in and application requests for city assistance programs.
How do firefighter perceptions of their role and of the community they serve evolve during their first year on the job?
We piloted sending pulse surveys to new classes of firefighter recruits over their first year on the job to track changes in their perceptions about their job and about the residents they are called to serve.
Does behaviorally-informed outreach increase rental property owners’ interest in housing voucher programs?
We are co-designing and experimentally testing new outreach strategies for increasing rental property owners’ engagement with housing voucher programs.
What predicts policymakers’ decisions to adopt evidence-based strategies?
Organizational inertia may explain why only about 30% of behavioral interventions tested in field experiments end up being adopted by the city department that tested them.
Publications
Search our database of peer-reviewed papers, policy briefs, and reports.