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?
Paulina Oliva is a Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on the relationship between air pollution and health and on environmental policy effectiveness in the developing world...
Peter Bergman is an Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. He studies how information problems affect human capital decision making.
Peter Christensen is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. As an applied microeconomist, he studies energy/environmental, public, and urban economics.
Philip Oreopoulos is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow at the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research. He has held previous visiting appointments at Harvard and the...
Rachel Glennerster is an Associate Professor of Economics in the Division of Social Science at the University of Chicago and currently serves as the President of the Center for Global Development.
Rebecca Dizon-Ross is an Associate Professor of Economics and Charles E. Merrill Faculty Scholar at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Matthew Notowidigdo is a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Scientific Director of J-PAL North America. His research broadly focuses on labor and health economics. He studies the causes and economic consequences of unemployment duration and insurance, as...
Michael Greenstone is the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. The focus of his research is on estimating the costs and benefits of environmental quality.
Michael Kremer is the Gates Professor of Developing Societies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He is the Co-Recipient of the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with J-PAL Co-Founders Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. He was also named a Young Global Leader by the World...
Michael Rosholm received a PhD in Economics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark for his thesis "Transitions in the Labor Market." Since 2006 he has been a Professor at the Business and Social Sciences School at Aarhus University, and the Research Director of the Centre for Research in Integration...