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

West African woman and children sitting on the edge of a dirt selling home grown produce

Earth Day 2022: Evidence for climate-resilient food systems and nutrition

The effects of climate change will worsen over the next thirty years and will disproportionately impact the world’s poorest people in many ways. In recognition of Earth Day 2022, we're highlighting how food systems, food security, and nutrition are particularly vulnerable to climate impacts.
A woman stands in front of a bookcase wearing a black jacket and glasses.

Affiliate Spotlight: Tavneet Suri on the importance of locally-grounded research

A weak internet connection did not stop J-PAL Africa Scientific Director Tavneet Suri from getting her point across in our interview: Good research is done with an ear to the ground and a connection to the community. Calling in from her home country of Kenya, Tavneet emphasized how important it is...
Khadijat Busola Amolegbe

African Scholar Spotlight: Dr. Khadijat Busola Amolegbe

As part of our ongoing series showcasing the work and journey of economists from the African continent who are leading randomized evaluations, we spoke with Dr. Khadijat Busola Amolegbe, a lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria.
A market vendor sits amid baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables

J-PAL and CEGA launch the Digital Agricultural Innovations and Services Initiative

By
Through generous support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J-PAL and UC Berkeley’s Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) launched the new Digital Agricultural Innovations and Services Initiative (DAISI) to support innovative, policy-relevant research on the availability, quality, and...
A man carries a large sack up a walkway into a truck

Evaluating an agricultural mobile marketplace at scale in Uganda

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  • Jenna Fahle
On Tuesday, November 9, Craig McIntosh (Professor of Economics at University of California, San Diego) and co-director of the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI), shared evidence from one of the largest market information experiments ever conducted. Jenna Fahle, CEGA Agriculture...
A market vendor stands in front of large sacks of onions

Building systems to improve and reward higher-quality agricultural products

Learn more about our new review of strategies designed to improve the quality of agricultural goods produced and sold at market.
A man squats in a rice paddy looking at a rice plant while holding a cell phone

Affiliate Spotlight: Shawn Cole

Shawn Cole is a Co-Founder and Chair of the Board at Precision Development (PxD), the John G McLean Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and serves as a Co-Chair for J-PAL’s Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action (IDEA) Initiative. For over twenty years, Shawn has...
Nine people having a conversation stand around a board covered in post-it notes

Why aren’t farmers using improved agricultural technologies to increase their profits? Lessons from ten years of research in the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative

By
  • Leah Bridle
Through more than ten years of research in J-PAL and CEGA's Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative, we’ve learned about the range of compounding constraints farmers face as microentrepreneurs, and that the next wave of experimentation should evaluate approaches designed to better include...