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 1,100 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 1,100 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 130 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?
Joseph Thornton is a Senior Policy Associate at J-PAL Europe where he contributes to the office’s labour market, firms and climate policy work and serves as the Europe office communications coordinator.
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether giving vocational trainees richer information about potential jobs improved their employment outcomes. Researchers provide suggestive evidence that with the information, trainees made better decisions on whether to continue the training: those who saw the program as a poor fit for their job ambitions dropped out, while those who valued the training’s job opportunities stayed.
In India, researchers evaluated the impact of interactive classroom discussions about gender roles and gender discrimination on adolescents’ gender attitudes, aspirations, and behaviors. The program impacted participants’ attitudes and made them more supportive of gender equality. These short-run effects were still present two years after the program had ended.
J-PAL North America is catalyzing rigorous research on the drivers and mechanisms of racism and discrimination through ethical, theory-driven randomized evaluations. Through this research, we aim to identify policies and interventions that promote justice and fairness for all. We advance this work...
J-PAL North America’s Initiative for Effective US Crime Policy (IECP) supports randomized evaluations of strategies that foster a more effective and fair criminal legal system.
J-PAL North America's Social Policy Research Initiative (SPRI), formerly known as the General Research Initiative, supports randomized impact evaluations of innovative social programs and policies that can provide insights for learning which policies work best and why.
David Deming is the Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy and the Director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.