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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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#DayoftheGirlChild: Preventing the surge in teenage pregnancies due to COVID-19

In this blog, we highlight key interventions that policymakers and practitioners may wish to consider to urgently reduce child marriages and teenage pregnancies in light of the pandemic.
A young student in class

Promoting girls’ participation in schools: insights from academic research

What actions can countries take to implement or reinforce efforts to increase school participation for girls? Pascaline Dupas (Stanford; Co-Chair, J-PAL’s Health sector) presented evidence from randomized evaluations on interventions that have increased school participation in a recent webinar.
Individual switching business sign to 'open'

How to use data for everyday decisions in a pandemic

To help us make safe, intelligent decisions for how to conduct our everyday lives during the pandemic, we need new data-driven tools to assess risk based on our unique personal profiles and local conditions.
Woman holds a card that reads "our vote our choice" from Ghana Decides

Digital IDs: The good, the bad, and the unknown

As policymakers across Africa are increasingly investing in digital identification systems, the Digital Identification and Finance Initiative in Africa (DigiFI) explores what the benefits, challenges, and unknowns are.
A woman inside a mall looks at her phone.

Using smartphones to trace mobility during regional lockdowns in Indonesia

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Using de-identified location data captured in smartphones, researchers worked with J-PAL Southeast Asia to study movement patterns to analyze how Indonesians changed their behaviors during the initial phases of COVID-19 and during the lockdown.
Mock up image of the Handbook on Using Administrative Data for Research and Evidence-based Policy

Announcing the Handbook on Using Administrative Data for Research and Evidence-based Policy

The Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action Initiative (IDEA) is excited to announce the release of the Handbook on Using Administrative Data for Research and Evidence-Based Policy co-edited by Shawn Cole, Iqbal Dhaliwal, Anja Sautmann, and Lars Vilhuber.
A hand reaches for a bottle of pills.

Affiliate Spotlight: Alicia Sasser Modestino on combating the opioid epidemic through rigorous research

Alicia Sasser Modestino is affiliate and an associate professor of public policy and urban affairs and economics at Northeastern University. Modestino also serves as the Director of Research at Northeastern University’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy.
Indonesian woman sits at a table scrolling through a tablet

Adopsi Layanan Keuangan Digital (LKD) di tengah Pandemi

Perkembangan terbaru di Indonesia semakin memperbesar pentingnya layanan keuangan digital (LKD) terutama potensinya dalam meringankan beban ekonomi akibat pandemi COVID-19. Meskipun informasi anekdotal menunjukkan bahwa penggunaan LKD di tengah pandemi ini sedang meningkat, pembuat kebijakan di...