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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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Letter from the Global Executive Director: J-PAL's response to COVID-19

J-PAL Global Executive Director Iqbal Dhaliwal outlines the actions J-PAL is taking to slow the spread of COVID-19 and ensure the safety of our staff.
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Voices from the field: Enumerator spotlight

J-PAL affiliates have now conducted over 1,000 randomized evaluations in 84 countries, scaling up a Nobel Prize-winning approach to poverty alleviation research. To celebrate this milestone, we’re highlighting the people who have facilitated this research throughout the years.
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Measuring social attitudes and norms in impact evaluations: Examples from India

Social norms also often persist despite economic growth, and can negatively impact development outcomes. Evaluating the impact of interventions targeting social norms can be useful to understand how they might be changed.
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Affiliate Spotlight: Karthik Muralidharan

Karthik Muralidharan is the Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego and also serves as a J-PAL Board member and co-chair of the Education sector. A pioneering researcher in education and service delivery, Karthik has profoundly influenced social service...
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Catalyzing research partnerships: matchmaking from A to Z

At J-PAL, we help promote evidence-based policies by ensuring that decision-makers have access to scientific evidence on the questions that matter. But what spurs these research-policy connections in the first place?
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What works to enhance women’s agency: Lessons from a new literature review

In honor of International Women’s Day this week, we are highlighting insights from a new literature review of the most effective approaches to improving women's agency and sharing ideas for further research.
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How J-PAL's Evaluating Social Programs course catalyzed a new approach to impact evaluation in Virginia

By
  • Massey Whorley
In this guest post, Massey Whorley, Director of Innovation and Strategic Initiatives at the Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS), shares insights from attending J-PAL’s Evaluating Social Programs Course and how it informed efforts to design and implement randomized evaluations of VDSS...
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Strengthening the Egyptian education system: A recap from the Global Evidence for Egypt spotlight seminar on education

The J-PAL Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Initiative, housed within the American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Business, hosted a seminar on “Strengthening the Egyptian Education System to Better Reach Marginalized Children and Youth: What We Can Learn from Randomized Evaluations” at AUC...