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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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Shifting social and gender norms for improved development outcomes: A recap from the Global Evidence for Egypt Spotlight Webinar

While Egypt has made some progress towards gender equality and girls’ and women's empowerment, traditional gender roles and power dynamics continue to persist. Egypt has one of the highest gender gaps in the world, ranking 134th out of 153 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender...
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Breaking down the gender gap in the DEDP MicroMasters Program

Despite the MicroMasters' broad access and reduced barriers to entry, women enroll in the program at half the rate of men. Conditional on enrolling, women are also less likely to complete the MicroMasters program than men. The difference in enrollment prompted us to take a deeper look into where...
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Pursuing evidence-based policymaking during crisis

By
In this blog post, members of a research-practice partnership with the Puerto Rico Department of Education reflect on their strategies to improve education outcomes and to persevere during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Navigating publication bias as an education provider

By
  • Timothy Sullivan
When a body of academic literature points to an effective new approach to generate meaningful learning gains for pupils, practitioners take notice. But this may not be the complete story. Timothy Sullivan, Director of Learning Innovation at education provider NewGlobe, shares insights from recent...
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The Data, Economics, and Development Policy master’s: Learning and connecting at MIT during Covid-19

We welcomed the second cohort of the Data, Economics, and Development Policy (DEDP) master’s program to campus in January. The students will earn their master’s degree in just eight months under a hybrid online and in-person model that allows the cohort to build community at MIT while accommodating...
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Creating learning opportunities all along the bureaucratic ladder

By
  • Siddarth Pandit
Siddarth Pandit explains how Creating Learning Opportunities for Public Officials (C-LOP), hosted by J-PAL South Asia, seeks to transform the Indian state’s execution capacity by helping government organizations and officials acquire and improve upon the requisite skills to be successful in their...
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The role of administrative data in improving social protection programs: A success story from Indonesia

Read about a collaboration between the Government of Indonesia and researchers to use government administrative data to evaluate some of the largest social programs in the country.
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A five-question women’s agency index created using machine learning and qualitative interviews

Women’s agency, or their ability to make and act on their choices for their lives, is an important concept in research and policy related to gender equality. Many policies aim to increase women’s agency, which could be a means for them to improve their health, economic security, and decision-making...