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?
Krishnendu Jayakrishnan is a Research Associate at J-PAL South Asia, where she works on the Effluent Trading project in Gujarat, one of the world’s first market-based mechanisms for industrial water pollution regulation.
Jade Sillère is a Research Assistant at J-PAL Europe, where she supports various research projects led by Assistant Professors Jacob Moscona and Nina Rousille, focusing on climate and labor markets.
Jens Ludwig is the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Social Service Administration, Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, and Co-Director of the University of Chicago Urban Education Lab. He also serves as non-resident Senior Fellow in Economic...
Judd Kessler is a Howard Marks Professor at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He investigates the economic and psychological forces that motivate individuals to contribute to public goods inside and outside the workplace, with applications including organ donation, worker effort...
Marc Gurgand is the Scientific Director of J-PAL Europe, a Senior Researcher at the CNRS, an IZA Research Fellow, a Chaired Professor at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and Head of the Economics Department at Ecole Normale Supérieure-Paris Sciences et Lettres (ENS-PSL).
Mireille Jacobson is a Professor at the Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California (USC) and Co-Director of the Aging and Cognition Program at USC’s Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.
Patrizio Piraino is a Professor in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. Patrizio’s main fields of interest are labor economics, education, and development. His research focuses broadly on the determinants of socioeconomic disadvantage. He has led a large cross...
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.
Rohini Pande is the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University and Co-Chair of J-PAL's Political Economy and Governance sector. She is a Co-Editor of American Economic Review: Insights. Her research focuses on the economic analysis of the...