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

An engineer inspecting HVAC on a roof.

Generating evidence to advance state and local decarbonization efforts

Peter Christensen, Scientific Advisor of the J-PAL North America Environment, Energy, and Climate Change (EECC) sector, discusses the importance of evaluating decarbonization now, outlines the project’s strategies , and invites stakeholders to join.
Presentation of the results of the first study funded by JOI Brazil, Stigma and Labor Supply.

J-PAL LAC at 15: Strengthening labor market policies in Brazil

To celebrate fifteen years of J-PAL’s Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) office, we launched a new blog series titled “J-PAL LAC at 15.” In this third installment, we feature the Jobs and Opportunity Initiative Brazil (JOI Brazil), an important step in our commitment to addressing Brazil’s...
A child and parent sitting opposite a man talking.

Nurturing the null: Leveraging unexpected null results to improve case management for housing services

By
Kimberly Dodds, homeless prevention program manager in King County, Washington, discusses her experience discovering that their program had null results and how they were used to improve the Youth Family Homelessness Prevention Initiative.
A Camden Coalition health practitioner leaving a house. Three individuals are standing around the house.

Nurturing the null: Navigating Evaluation Challenges in Community-Based Care Management

By
  • Aaron Truchil
  • Dawn Wiest
  • Kathleen Noonan
In this piece, originally published in American Society on Aging’s Generations, Aaron Truchil, Dawn Wiest, and Kathleen Noonan of the Camden Coalition discuss their experience finding and learning from null results.
Two individuals looking at a chalk board with formulas and notes written on it.

Nurturing the null: Preparing for null results to bolster evidence use

Null results—finding no impact—can be particularly difficult for researchers, policymakers, and service providers to act on. In this blog post, we share three key considerations for successfully designing studies and acting on null results.
Three people stand around a white board and point to it.

J-PAL LAC at 15: Expanding ECD programs through evidence in the region

As we mark fifteen years of J-PAL’s Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) office, we are recapping key milestones and sharing what we have learned in a new blog series. The series highlights lessons from working with those who make our mission a reality: our donors, implementing partners, J-PAL...
Pascaline Dupas welcoming ENSEA into ADEPT

Building a worldwide Alliance for Data, Evaluation, and Policy Training

The Alliance for Data, Evaluation, and Policy Training (ADEPT) is a new effort led by J-PAL together with universities, training institutions, and other actors to empower researchers and decision-makers to use evidence to solve complex policy problems.
Five headshots of the blog authors. Top row starting from the left: Damon Jones, Laura Feeney, Matt Notowidigdo. Bottom row starting from the left: Shanyce Campbell, Sule Alan.

Exploring the role of positionality in economics research

J-PAL North America convened a small group of researchers to ask how we might consider positionality within a quantitative research setting.