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Abbreviation | J-PAL |
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Founded | 2003[1] |
Founder | |
Type | Research institute |
Focus | Economic research, poverty alleviation |
Headquarters | Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Coordinates | 42°21′45″N 71°5′16″W / 42.36250°N 71.08778°W |
Area served | Worldwide |
Method | Randomized controlled trials |
Directors | Esther Duflo Abhijit Banerjee Benjamin Olken |
Affiliations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) |
Employees | 400+[1] |
Website | https://www.povertyactionlab.org/ |
Formerly called | Jameel Poverty Action Lab |
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aimed to reducing poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by rigorous, scientific evidence.[1][2] J-PAL funds, provides technical support to, and disseminates the results of randomized controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of social interventions in health, education, agriculture, and a range of other fields.[2] As of 2020, the J-PAL network consisted of 500 researchers and 400 staff, and the organization's programs had impacted over 400 million people globally.[1] The organization has regional offices in seven countries around the world,[3] and is headquartered near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[2]
In 2019, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was jointly awarded to J-PAL co-founders Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, alongside economist Michael Kremer, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty".[4] The Nobel committee highlighted Duflo and Banerjee's work building J-PAL in their report on the scientific background for the award, noting that the organization was "vital" in promoting the acceptance of randomized controlled trials as an empirical technique in development economics.[5] Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times has described J-PAL as leading a "revolution in evaluation".[6]
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