Prevailing views suggest that adverse policing outcomes are driven by problematic police officers and deficient policies. This study highlights an overlooked factor – cognitive demands inherent in police work. A training designed to improve officer decision-making under stress and time pressure, two key cognitive demands, lead to 23% fewer uses of force and discretionary arrests, and 11% fewer arrests of Black civilians. The results demonstrate the power of leveraging behavioral science insights to make policing more effective and equitable.

Expanding access to two-year community college has significant value-added for two-year entrants who otherwise would not have attended college, but negative impacts on students diverted from immediate four-year entry.

Neither eligibility for nor information about the Teacher Loan Forgiveness (TLF) program affect teachers’ employment decisions. Information increases application and TLF receipt rates for teachers who have already accrued the five years required to be eligible. In general, teachers appear to value the prospect of debt relief, and TLF take-up may be constrained by program complexity and administrative barriers.

Relative to borrowers who had to continue paying their loans, borrowers allowed to pause their payments sharply increased mortgage, auto, and credit card borrowing, with little effect on loan delinquencies.

To effectively disseminate important information on polarized issues such as climate change, vaccination, etc., it is crucial to first identify and intervene against the underlying fundamental values that might prevent individuals’ accurate digestion of the high-stakes information.

Of the many decisions facing high school students—and their parents—few loom larger than whether and where to attend college. Families with college-bound children often go to great lengths to ensure admission into a “good” school. But do colleges with successful graduates actually contribute to their students’ success, or simply enroll the types of students who would do well no matter where they attend?