BlogNews

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

Celebrating International Women’s Day at J-PAL

Tuesday, March 5, 2019, by Akshara Gopalan

With the launch of J-PAL’s Gender Sector last year, we redoubled our efforts to integrate gender and gender-related issues into our work. On International Women’s Day, we’d like to share some of the gender-related work J-PAL and our affiliated researchers have undertaken over the last year. Read More

Building evidence, advancing policy, and impacting lives at the state and local level

Monday, March 4, 2019, by Jacob Binder

Across the United States there has been growing interest among city, county, and state governments to partner with researchers to generate high-quality evidence to inform important policy decisions.

In February 2019, J-PAL North America hosted Building Evidence, Advancing Policy, Impacting Lives, the third annual convening of J-PAL’s State and Local Innovation Initiative, to bring government leaders together on MIT’s campus. Together with academic researchers, funders, and research... Read More

Affiliate Spotlight: Seema Jayachandran and Benjamin Olken on promoting inclusivity in development economics

Tuesday, February 5, 2019, by Seema Jayachandran, Benjamin A. Olken, and Evelina Smirnitskaya

Seema Jayachandran and Benjamin Olken are the new Co-Directors of the Development Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In their new roles, they aim to promote diversity in gender, race, and methodology. Read the full Q&A to learn more. Read More

Announcing the Innovation in Government Initiative

Tuesday, February 5, 2019, by Samantha Carter, Samantha Friedlander, Siena Harlin, and Claire Walsh

Today we are announcing J-PAL’s Innovation in Government Initiative (IGI). IGI’s mission is to work with governments to adapt, pilot, and scale evidence-informed innovations with the potential to improve the lives of millions of people living in poverty in developing countries.

For more than a decade, J-PAL has built long-term partnerships with governments around the world to increase the use of evidence from randomized evaluations in policy, and adapt... Read More

Committing to a randomized evaluation: The scariest and smartest thing we ever did

Thursday, January 31, 2019, by Shane DeRolf

My name is Shane DeRolf.

I am the founder and CEO of Big Word Club, a digital learning company committed to improving the vocabularies of every kid in America.

It all started about 25 years ago when I quit my job to pursue a dream.

That dream was to create great media that helped kids think, learn and grow.

Here’s what those 25 years felt like…

... Read More

Group session at staff training

From Goa to New Hampshire, staff trainings build research capacity

Tuesday, January 29, 2019, by Michael Gibson and Clare Sachsse

Since 2003, J-PAL has hosted more than 305 training courses and trained more than 2,600 people. These trainings fulfill one goal of J-PAL’s Research, Education, and Training team—to share best practices with the research staff of our affiliated researchers and partner organizations who are building a body of rigorous evidence on effective ways to reduce poverty. Week-long research staff trainings teach new techniques, share best practices, and provide opportunities for research staff to network and troubleshoot with one another. Read More

Rohini Pande in classroom

Affiliate spotlight: Rohini Pande on furthering the status of women in economics

Wednesday, January 9, 2019, by Hanna Juergens and Rohini Pande

Rohini Pande is a professor of international political economy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Co-Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), and Co-Chair of J-PAL’s Political Economy & Governance sector. She was recently named the 2018 recipient of the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award—a prize awarded annually to an individual who has furthered the status of women in economics. Read More

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