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News, ideas, and analysis from J-PAL staff and affiliated professors. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive monthly email updates.

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Reflecting on research during times of uncertainty: A recap from Puerto Rico’s EDUGESPRO graduation

J-PAL North America staff and researchers recently attended a graduation ceremony for school principals who participated in EDUGESPRO, a professional development program born out of a research partnership with the Puerto Rico Department of Education.
A male farmer standing in a field of crops looks down at a mobile phone that he is holding.

Evidence for digital and bundled services: Framing a research agenda for the Digital Agricultural Innovations and Services Initiative

As the reach of digital agricultural services has grown rapidly within the last few years, building an evidence base on how these services should be designed, implemented, and scaled to best align with the priorities of small-scale producers is an important and timely issue—and one that J-PAL's...
People refer to various charts on a laptop during a meeting.

From RCT data to survey instruments: how to find what you need on the J-PAL Dataverse

This post is the first in a two-part series to highlight both why and how to use the J-PAL Dataverse. The goal of this first post is to provide a user-friendly guide to access our data, and a starter menu of use cases of data from randomized control trials (RCTs) for students, researchers, teachers...
Two female students work on an engineering project, overseen by a teacher

Investing in students early: The effects of a STEM pipeline program for underrepresented high school students

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The research team behind a rigorous, long-term evaluation of a STEM program for high schoolers discusses their new working paper & key findings, including a significant increase in graduation rates for program participants.
A large group of mostly women, many of whom are wearing purple, sits in front of a stage with eight people on it.

Affiliate Spotlight: Sandip Sukhtankar on his path to becoming a economist and the value of interdisciplinary collaboration

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Sandip Sukhtankar is an associate professor of economics at the University of Virginia. He serves on the board of J-PAL’s Digital Identification and Finance Initiative in Africa (DigiFI Africa) and co-directs the Payments and Governance Research Program (PGRP) hosted at J-PAL South Asia. Sandip’s...
A screenshot of J-PAL affiliated professor Sandip Sukhtankar speaking during a virtual interview.

Lessons from gender-sensitive police reform in India: A Q&A with Sandip Sukhtankar on his new paper in Science

J-PAL affiliate Sandip Sukhtankar shares learnings, policy insights, and scaling plans related to a large-scale evaluation of gender-sensitive police reforms in Madhya Pradesh, India, published in July 2022 in Science.
Woman in her studio

Improving access to microfinance in Chile: Lessons from a strong collaboration with Fondo Esperanza

For four years, Chilean microfinance institution Fondo Esperanza has strengthened a close collaboration with J-PAL affiliates, Natalia Rigol and Benjamin Roth, and their research team. A recently published working paper has resulted from the fruitful partnership, as well as including new evaluations...
Mother holding baby

How government, academic, and nonprofit partners are working to evaluate a home visiting program in South Carolina to improve family health and wellbeing

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Jordan Desai (South Carolina Department of Health Human Services) ; William Thorland, (National Service Office for Nurse-Family Partnership and Child First); and Margaret McConnell (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) discuss the rigorous evaluation of the Nurse-Family Partnership program in...