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?
How can we design more effective social programmes across Europe? J-PAL affiliated researchers focus on the contribution made by randomised evaluations to the development of high-quality evidence for informing social policy.
J-PAL Europe fosters the generation of new rigorous evaluation in Europe by funding research projects designed to expand the evidence base in key thematic areas and by partnering with governments and organisations to institutionalise efforts to use rigorous evidence in the design of more effective...
J-PAL Europe works with development cooperation agencies to access, leverage and generate insights from randomised evaluations conducted around the world, with the goal of increasing the effectiveness of development cooperation.
Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) reward landholders and communities for protecting nature, with research showing that well-designed programs can slow deforestation and enhance ecosystems at low cost. However, traditional outcome-based models often overlook communities' ways of life, limiting...
In the August edition of our newsletter, we share the latest from The Evidence Effect on taking action in conflict and crisis and effective policies in high-income countries, an opportunity to lead J-PAL Africa as Executive Director, and a new podcast series from J-PAL South Asia on research in...
Tanvi Jaluka shares how she and her team at CARE conducted qualitative research as part of a baseline survey for Strive Women program in Peru, Pakistan, and Vietnam.
Robert Lensink is a Professor of Finance and Financial Markets at the University of Groningen, where he also serves as the Vice Dean of Research of the Faculty of Economics and Business, and Fellow of the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development.
Adam Szeidl is a Professor of Economics at Central European University, where he also serves as the Co-Director of the Center for Belief Update and Debiasing.