The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,100 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,100 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.
Our affiliated professors are based at over 130 universities and conduct randomized evaluations around the world to design, evaluate, and improve programs and policies aimed at reducing poverty. They set their own research agendas, raise funds to support their evaluations, and work with J-PAL staff on research, policy outreach, and training.
Our Board of Directors, which is composed of J-PAL affiliated professors and senior management, provides overall strategic guidance to J-PAL, our sector programs, and regional offices.
We host events around the world and online to share results and policy lessons from randomized evaluations, to build new partnerships between researchers and practitioners, and to train organizations on how to design and conduct randomized evaluations, and use evidence from impact evaluations.
Browse news articles about J-PAL and our affiliated professors, read our press releases and monthly global and research newsletters, and connect with us for media inquiries.
Based at leading universities around the world, our experts are economists who use randomized evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty. Connect with us for all media inquiries and we'll help you find the right person to shed insight on your story.
J-PAL is based at MIT in Cambridge, MA and has seven regional offices at leading universities in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
J-PAL is based at MIT in Cambridge, MA and has seven regional offices at leading universities in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Our global office is based at the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It serves as the head office for our network of seven independent regional offices.
Led by affiliated professors, J-PAL sectors guide our research and policy work by conducting literature reviews; by managing research initiatives that promote the rigorous evaluation of innovative interventions by affiliates; and by summarizing findings and lessons from randomized evaluations and producing cost-effectiveness analyses to help inform relevant policy debates.
Led by affiliated professors, J-PAL sectors guide our research and policy work by conducting literature reviews; by managing research initiatives that promote the rigorous evaluation of innovative interventions by affiliates; and by summarizing findings and lessons from randomized evaluations and producing cost-effectiveness analyses to help inform relevant policy debates.
How do policies affecting private sector firms impact productivity gaps between higher-income and lower-income countries? How do firms’ own policies impact economic growth and worker welfare?
How can we identify effective policies and programs in low- and middle-income countries that provide financial assistance to low-income families, insuring against shocks and breaking poverty traps?
Back in February of this year, J-PAL hit a milestone: our affiliates collectively conducted over 1,000 randomized evaluations. Six months later, we revisit this milestone with a new perspective.
Following an evaluation in California testing variations of reminder letters to low-income households to increase take-up of tax credits, the US tax agency scaled up nationally the use of messaging on notification letters that simply and prominently displayed potential benefits.
Saga Education’s intensive math tutoring program has been shown to improve academic outcomes and has now reached 12,000 students facing barriers in the United States.
Based on evidence that biometric monitoring technology did not increase doctors' attendance at primary health centers, the government of Karnataka decided to end the program, saving taxpayers millions of dollars.
The French government abandoned a policy that would have required firms to make recruitment decisions based on anonymized resumes after research showed that a voluntary, pilot scheme actually harmed minority applicants’ employment chances.
Evidence from a flagship randomized evaluation in the United States prompted legislative and administrative changes to expand housing choice for low-income families.
Evidence from a randomized evaluation and cost-effectiveness analysis led the Chilean government to expand a consumer information campaign to protect at-risk marine species.
Researchers introduced a convenient and hygienic sanitary product, reusable menstrual cups, to Nepalese girls in the seventh and eighth grades. Their evaluation addressed several questions: Is menstruation as large a barrier to education as many believe? Does switching to modern sanitary products increase attendance and school performance among girls?
This evaluation measured the determinants of insurance enrollment as well as the impacts of having insurance for informal sector workers by randomly varying the costs and convenience of signing up for a government health insurance program available to formal and informal sector workers in Nicaragua. Overall, take-up of the insurance and retention rates were low, and enrolling in the program did not provide an absolute cost savings for participants.
Approximately 85 percent of primary school age children in western Kenya are enrolled in school, but only about one-third of students finish primary school. This project was introduced in part to assist families of high-achieving girls to cover the cost of school fees, supplies, and activities.
Researchers evaluated the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project (MDICP), which sought to explore the demand for, and the impact of, learning one’s HIV status. While even very small incentives encouraged people to return for their HIV test results, rapid testing in the home had the greatest impact on program take-up. However, for most people, learning their HIV status did not substantially change long-term behavior.
Cambridge, MA—A $25 million gift will underpin a new initiative to combat both climate change and poverty through scalable, evidence-based policy solutions, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT and King Philanthropies announced today. The new King Climate Action Initiative (K-CAI...
Researchers evaluated the impact of the Balsakhi Program, a remedial tutoring education intervention implemented in schools in Vadodara and Mumbai, India, on student learning. The program significantly improved student test scores in both locations.
Researchers examined the level of racial discrimination in the United States labor market by randomly assigning identical résumés black-sounding or white-sounding names and observing the impact on requests for interviews from employers. Results found that résumés with white-sounding names received 50 percent more callbacks than those with black-sounding names, indicating that, all other things being equal, considerable racial discrimination exists in the American labor market.
This evaluation studied the influence of information and social networks on university employees' decisions to enroll in a voluntary Tax Deferred Account (TDA) retirement plan in the United States. The results indicated that an individual’s decision to participate in the TDA is affected by small changes in their environment (i.e. in their social network), and not only by receiving increased information.