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

Woman works with a sewing machine in Ghana

Reflecting on J-PAL’s Jobs and Opportunity Initiative’s first year

Quality employment is one of the many ways people can graduate from poverty. Yet, unemployment remains is a problem that has only become more salient through the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of 2020, the Jobs and Opportunity Initiativehas funded more than twenty projects that seek to answer...
A view of the Boston common, city hall, and distant skyscrapers

Promoting upward mobility in partnership with state and local governments: A blueprint for future evaluations

This blog post is the final piece in a series on how state and local governments in the United States can promote upward mobility in their communities. It is part of J-PAL North America’s work to develop a learning agenda that summarizes the core research priorities from state and local governments...
People in a queue for a vaccination drive.

Strengthening social assistance and health response to COVID-19 in India

The COVID-19 pandemic has expanded the proportion of the population in low- and middle-income countries that require social assistance from governments to deal with economic and health vulnerabilities. Can social assistance schemes be better designed so that they reach those who need support the...
A woman uses her phone

Can digital technology help create a more gender-equal society?

Despite considerable progress in achieving gender parity, inequalities faced by women remain a major global challenge. Can access to the right financial tools support women’s empowerment and result in better outcomes for not only women but also children, household welfare, and the wider community?
A laptop viewed from behind, with a hand positioned on the track pad.

Announcing the AEA RCT Registry’s new metadata repository

In 2013, J-PAL began a collaboration with the American Economic Association to create the AEA’s RCT Registry. Now, users can browse registry metadata with ease using monthly data snapshots uploaded to the Harvard Dataverse by J-PAL. These snapshot datasets let users access registry metadata, cite to...
A woman wearing a mask weighs bread in a store

Mapping the impact of COVID-19 on firms in LMICs: A snapshot from ongoing surveys

To understand how the pandemic has altered the business landscape in LMICs, J-PAL’s Firms Sector is synthesizing results from surveys conducted by J-PAL affiliates and invited researchers on the impact of COVID-19 on micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) around the world. This snapshot...
Two men sitting down listening to a facilitator of the UBL program

Preventing intimate partner violence by engaging men: Evidence from Unite for Better Life in Ethiopia

By
A growing body of evidence suggests that gender inequality, especially social norms that endorse violence against women, is one of the main drivers of IPV. What programs can effectively build more gender equitable attitudes and behaviors, and do these behaviors translate into reductions in violence...
A man and woman look at their mobile phones

Leveraging the digital revolution: Can governments utilize big data to help decision-making?

Using evidence to make policy decisions can be a challenge when the information one needs is not credible, easily accessible, or interpretable. However, this difficulty can be overcome with the use of a high-frequency monitoring system. As governments and organizations move towards more digitized...