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

Pregnant woman with smartphone

Leveraging technology to improve child-caregiver interactions at scale

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Can technology be used to improve child-caregiver interactions and support child development? Traditional parenting interventions are often costly and tightly controlled, which limits their large-scale implementation. A low-cost intervention called Crianza Positiva, delivering text and audio...
Person opening opening mail with letter containing text "Health Insurance Marketplace: You're almost done at Healthcare.gov..."

Overcoming administrative burdens: Strategies to increase access to health insurance in the United States

A new J-PAL policy insight highlights evidence from randomized evaluations on the impact of informational “nudges”—strategies designed to inform individuals about various aspects of health insurance and influence behavior without changing legal or economic systems—on health insurance take-up. In...
A woman sits and is weaving a rug

New Displaced Livelihoods Initiative will help advance sustainable livelihoods for displaced and host communities

Today, we announce the launch of the Displaced Livelihoods Initiative (DLI), jointly managed by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), with generous support from the IKEA Foundation. DLI is the world’s first research fund dedicated to generating...
Photo of an officer checking the condition of the solar panel, early warning system, in anticipation of landslides

Of satellites and surveys: How innovative data collection can speed up climate action

This Earth Day blog post discusses how we speed up the path from research to policy action at J-PAL through the King Climate Action Initiative (K-CAI), which prioritizes funding research and scaling that uses administrative and remote sensing data to generate results in a timely manner.
Two men and one woman sit in chairs on a panel.

J-PAL partners with the IFC and IGC to discuss global supply chains, sustainability, and research collaboration

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Can more firms learn from randomized evaluations to improve business operations in developing economies? How can development institutions better support clients to achieve sustainable growth and key performance improvements in terms of productivity, gender, work-related practices, skills, and other...
A group of five women stand in front of a historical fort.

Affiliate Spotlight: Simone Schaner on lessons learned from advancing evidence-based policy

Simone Schaner is an associate professor (research) of economics at the University of Southern California and co-chair of the Inclusive Financial Innovation Initiative. Simone’s interests revolve around decision-making processes within households, especially related to financial access, health care...
Attending members of the Bonn evaluating social programs course listening to speaker

J-PAL at 20: Supporting the use of rigorous evidence in German development cooperation

How can we support our policy partners to institutionalise the use of rigorous evidence? This blog post, the second in a series exploring J-PAL's research and policy activities across Europe, looks at our partnership with German development cooperation actors to facilitate the use of evidence in...
Participants sitting at table at J-PAL SEA’s learning collaborative forum in Indonesia

Accelerating financial inclusion in Indonesia through innovations in digital financial services: Early learnings from exploratory and pilot studies

On 26 January 2023, IFII hosted a learning collaborative to share insights from exploratory and pilot studies to inform policy and decision-making in the digital financial inclusion space. Speakers and participants from government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector had the...