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

Indiana state house building

State and local policy responses to COVID-19: Lessons from evidence

J-PAL North America has curated a set of randomized evaluations that tested specific policy options related to the social safety net, health, and education. Our goal is to provide actionable evidence to inform state and local leaders’ policy responses to challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two women gather around a computer on which an online course is displayed.

How to keep students engaged in online learning

Transitioning from a classroom to an online video conference is challenging for everyone involved—teachers must make extra effort to engage students effectively, and students in turn have to make an extra effort to stay engaged amid distractions at home. Research suggests that students typically do...
Children sit on the ground, playing on tablets

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...
A group of people sit around a table discussing.

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?
researcher presents at a conference

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...
School children in Indonesia

Informing shifts in policy: Reflections on a long-run impact evaluation of a community block grant program in Indonesia

Creating good policies is a complex and dynamic process. A program can be evaluated, found to improve people’s lives, and be scaled up. However, in the longer run, these programs interact with other policies, contexts change, and policymakers are in constant need of new information and evidence to...

How this year’s Nobel Prize winners helped shape an education revolution in Africa

TaRL Africa team member Ashleigh Morrell reflects on how Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee helped pave the way for a quiet Teaching at the Right Level revolution across schools in Africa.

Policymakers and researchers collaborate to improve education quality in Puerto Rico

By
  • Gustavo Bobonis
  • Nicolás Riveros Medelius
Puerto Rico faces deeply rooted and complex education challenges. We formed a partnership between the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE) and academic researchers to study these challenges and promote decision-making based on data, research, and evidence.