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.

History

J-PAL was founded in 2003 by Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan (J-PAL 2020). Rachel Glennerster was its Executive Director between 2004 and 2017. In 2019, Banerjee and Duflo, together with Michael Kremer, were awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for their research involving randomized controlled trials in social science (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2019).

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a close partner of J-PAL.

Evaluation

In January 2019, GiveWell recommended a $1 million grant—via the Global Health and Development Fund—to Innovation in Government Initiative (IGI), a grantmaking entity that sits within J-PAL (GiveWell 2019).

As of September 2021, J-PAL has received $200,000 in grants from Open Philanthropy (Open Philanthropy 2017; Open Philanthropy 2021).

Bibliography

Banerjee, Abhijit & Esther Duflo (2011) Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, New York: PublicAffairs.

Banerjee, Abhijit & Esther Duflo (2019) Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems, New York: PublicAffairs.

Bloomberg Businessweek (2010) The pragmatic rebels, Bloomberg Businessweek, July 2.

Dhaliwal, Iqbal, Claire Walsh & Elie Hassenfeld (2016) A conversation with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, GiveWell, February 12.

GiveWell (2019) Innovation in government initiative — general support, GiveWell, January.

Glennerster, Rachel et al. (2014) A conversation with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab , GiveWell, December 22.

J-PAL (2020) About us, J-PAL.

Open Philanthropy (2017) J-PAL — Support for immunization incentives RCTs, Open Philanthropy, March.

Open Philanthropy (2021) Grants database, Open Philanthropy.

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2019) The Prize in Economic Sciences 2019, The Nobel Prize, October 14.

Sanchez, Sebastian et al. (2020) Timeline of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, Timelines Wiki, April 10.

External links

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Official website.

Related links

Abhijit Banerjee | Esther Duflo | Innovations for Poverty Action | randomized controlled trials

Education