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 research, policy, and training work is fundamentally better when it is informed by a broad range of perspectives.
J-PAL Affiliated Professor
Byron Wein Professor of Business Administration
Harvard University
Vincent Pons is the Byron Wein Professor of Business Administration in the Harvard Business School’s Business, Government, and International Economy Unit. He studies questions in political economy and development with the goal of understanding how to make rights and services more accessible to everyone, including disadvantaged groups.
Vincent has done research in Africa and Europe on voter participation, including get-out-the-vote campaigns in France and a text message campaign leading up to the national elections in Kenya. He has also done work in the health sector, including examining the role of incentives and monitoring in the treatment of tuberculosis in India, which has the world’s highest incidence of TB.
Vincent received his PhD in Economics from MIT and holds Master’s degrees in Economics, Political Philosophy, and International Relations.