The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,000 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,000 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.
Our affiliated professors are based at over 120 universities and conduct randomized evaluations around the world to design, evaluate, and improve programs and policies aimed at reducing poverty. They set their own research agendas, raise funds to support their evaluations, and work with J-PAL staff on research, policy outreach, and training.
Our Board of Directors, which is composed of J-PAL affiliated professors and senior management, provides overall strategic guidance to J-PAL, our sector programs, and regional offices.
We host events around the world and online to share results and policy lessons from randomized evaluations, to build new partnerships between researchers and practitioners, and to train organizations on how to design and conduct randomized evaluations, and use evidence from impact evaluations.
Browse news articles about J-PAL and our affiliated professors, read our press releases and monthly global and research newsletters, and connect with us for media inquiries.
Based at leading universities around the world, our experts are economists who use randomized evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty. Connect with us for all media inquiries and we'll help you find the right person to shed insight on your story.
J-PAL is based at MIT in Cambridge, MA and has seven regional offices at leading universities in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
J-PAL is based at MIT in Cambridge, MA and has seven regional offices at leading universities in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Our global office is based at the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It serves as the head office for our network of seven independent regional offices.
Led by affiliated professors, J-PAL sectors guide our research and policy work by conducting literature reviews; by managing research initiatives that promote the rigorous evaluation of innovative interventions by affiliates; and by summarizing findings and lessons from randomized evaluations and producing cost-effectiveness analyses to help inform relevant policy debates.
Led by affiliated professors, J-PAL sectors guide our research and policy work by conducting literature reviews; by managing research initiatives that promote the rigorous evaluation of innovative interventions by affiliates; and by summarizing findings and lessons from randomized evaluations and producing cost-effectiveness analyses to help inform relevant policy debates.
How do policies affecting private sector firms impact productivity gaps between higher-income and lower-income countries? How do firms’ own policies impact economic growth and worker welfare?
How can we identify effective policies and programs in low- and middle-income countries that provide financial assistance to low-income families, insuring against shocks and breaking poverty traps?
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...
Over the past two decades, J-PAL and members of our research network worked closely with USAID on many projects to design, pilot, and evaluate innovative solutions; scale up those found to be effective, scale down those that do not work; and widely share the learnings.
In this blog, Karin Mason, former Agriculture Program Intern at CEGA, highlights three ATAI-funded projects led by graduate students Steven Brownstone (UCSD), Piyush Gandhi (UCSC), and Iacopo Bianchi (SU).
J-PAL Africa has officially launched the Jobs and Entrepreneurship in Africa (JEA) Portfolio, which aims to identify high impact and cost-effective strategies to promote growth for small and medium enterprises as a route to job creation.
The impacts of climate change are expected to intensify over the next thirty years and will disproportionately affect those experiencing poverty, exacerbate inequalities, trap disadvantaged groups in a cycle of poverty and vulnerability, and threaten to reverse years of progress. Global events, such...
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...
J-PAL LAC was established in the Institute of Economics (IE) of UC Chile in 2009. Since then, J-PAL LAC’s expansion to more countries in the region has been largely thanks to our donors. Learn about some of our most recent partnerships with them.
The need for more financing is one of the biggest barriers to small- and medium-sized enterprises’ growth. Microcredit programs can help entrepreneurs overcome financial constraints, providing access to resources to boost the growth of small businesses and alleviate poverty by increasing income...