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News, ideas, and analysis from J-PAL staff and affiliated professors. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive monthly email updates.

Rural entrepreneurs selling their products

Empowering rural entrepreneurs in Chile: Insights from the Trafkintunkim program evaluation

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Can business training programs help rural microentrepreneurs thrive? A new evaluation of Trafkintunkim, a rural entrepreneurship training program in southern Chile, finds that participants improved their business practices and household incomes. Gains were strongest for women and for entrepreneurs...
Representatives from the zakat management organization share about the existing economic empowerment programs they have implemented in Indonesia

Supporting Indonesia's faith-based charitable funds, zakat, in tackling poverty through the Graduation approach

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On October 8, J-PAL Southeast Asia hosted a workshop gathering several of Indonesia’s zakat management organizations (Organisasi Pengelola Zakat or OPZ) to explore how zakat, faith-based charitable funds, can further support poverty alleviation through the Graduation approach. In this blog we...
A mother and her child playing at a park.

What recent findings from the Baby’s First Years study reveals about cash’s impact on family life of young children in the United States

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Recent findings from the Baby's First Years study reveal mixed impacts: while cash support helped families and children in some narrow ways, it did not have broad effects across other aspects of family life. Several factors should be considered when interpreting these results.
A woman sits at a table with a boy looking at a sheet of paper.

Twelve iterative A/B tests to optimize tutoring for scale

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  • Noam Angrist
  • Elle Brooks
  • Colin Crossley
  • Claire Cullen
In a series of 12 iterative A/B tests, researchers compared two versions of our tutoring program in Botswana to see which performed better. At the end of each test, results were compared and whichever version delivered the most impact for the least amount of money was generally adopted as the new...
A man in side profile uses a desktop computer

AI for social good: Supporting workers and businesses in LMICs

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Researchers in the J-PAL network have been using randomized evaluations to learn how to help people get jobs and how to help businesses grow for over two decades, drawing out insights to inform policies and programs from Brazil to sub-Saharan Africa and beyond . Researchers have also started testing...
A group of women sit in a circle playing with their young babies

Building on existing systems: Advancing early childhood outcomes in Indonesia through collaboration and evidence

J-PAL Southeast Asia organized a research-to-policy showcase bringing together policymakers, researchers, civil society organizations (CSOs), development partners, and private sector to discuss innovations for strengthening the last-mile delivery of early childhood education and development (ECED)...
A group of people attending RST.

Supporting early career research staff through North America’s Research Staff Training

J-PAL North America hosted an in-person Research Staff Training (RST) in August 2025, welcoming 29 participants to a three-day course on randomized evaluations.
Four children sit in a circle playing the number comparison game

Scaling a playful math curriculum to help children learn: Introducing the Every Child Counts Implementation Toolkit

The world is facing an urgent foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) crisis, worsened by Covid. As organizations and governments around the world mobilize to address this crisis, J-PAL South Asia has been working since 2020 to scale Every Child Counts, a unique curriculum that builds on fifty...