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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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Re-affirming the value of rigorous, policy-relevant research

Rigorous research plays an essential role in identifying which policies are achieving their intended goals. As leaders of a non-partisan research center, J-PAL North America believes in the power of data and evaluation to understand whether policies are working—and to course correct when they are...
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Beyond legal evidence: An interview with Judge Veronica Galván on evaluating judicial programs

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This blog features an interview with Judge Veronica Galvan, a member of the King County Superior Court, on the role of evaluating judicial programs.
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Scaling effective solutions for economic opportunity: Insights from Results for America’s Economic Mobility Catalog

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This blog discusses the Economic Mobility Catalog, a tool for boosting effective anti-poverty policies by featuring evidence-backed pathways to economic mobility via synthesized research, implementation best practices, and case studies.
A headshot of Alicia Modestino.

Researcher Spotlight: Alicia Sasser Modestino on boosting youth employment through trust and partnership

In this Evidence Champion series, J-PAL North America is recognizing individuals in our network who have made extraordinary contributions to the field of evidence-based policymaking. This year's researcher recipient is Alicia Sasser Modestino, Executive Director of the Community to Community Impact...
A headshot of AJ Gutierrez against a brick wall.

Partner Spotlight: How AJ Gutierrez is increasing educational equity through collaboration and evaluation

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In this Evidence Champion series, J-PAL North America is recognizing individuals in our network who have made extraordinary contributions to the field of evidence-based policymaking. This year’s partner recipient is AJ Gutierrez, Co-Founder and Chief of Policy and Public Affairs at Saga Education.
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Ideas to Implementation: Developing a Theory of Change to evaluate mobile medications for opioid use disorders in Pierce County, Washington

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Pierce County Human Services (PCHS) discusses the evaluation considerations for its mobile medication for opioid use disorder (mobile MOUD) program.
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Nurturing the null: Approaching research design with all possibilities in mind

In this blog post, Manasi Deshpande and Rebecca Dizon-Ross shared how they designed a multi-step evaluation to determine if their null findings were due to a failure of their research design or a flaw in their Theory of Change.
An engineer inspecting HVAC on a roof.

Generating evidence to advance state and local decarbonization efforts in the United States

Peter Christensen, Scientific Advisor of the J-PAL North America Environment, Energy, and Climate Change (EECC) sector, discusses the importance of rigorously evaluating decarbonization programming now, outlines the project’s work to build and execute a coordinated research agenda, and invites...