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.
This randomized evaluation explores innovative strategies that leverage information to enhance political accountability in the presence of strong ethnic and regional ties to parties in Sierra Leone. The accountability function of voting is compromised when citizens have little information about the performance of politicians. In the run-up to the 2012 elections in Sierra Leone, researchers are thus evaluating whether hosting structured debates between candidates provides voters with information on the performance and capabilities of incumbents and challengers, thereby relaxing reliance on ethnic-party ties, and increasing the contestability of seats. Researchers will also seek to disentangle the effect of the debates as a vehicle of information dissemination from the information itself, and further explore the mechanisms through which voters obtain and act on different types of information about candidates