The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) was established in 2003 as a research center at the Economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since then, it has grown into a global network of researchers who use randomized evaluations to answer critical policy questions in the fight against poverty.
J-PAL's headquarters (J-PAL Global) and J-PAL North America (one of six regional offices) are both based at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We leverage research by affiliated professors from universities across the continent and a full-time staff of researchers, policy experts, and administrative professionals to generate and disseminate rigorous evidence about which anti-poverty social policies work and why.
We do this by conducting randomized evaluations, sharing policy lessons, and building evaluation capacity. Our work spans a wide range of sectors including healthcare, housing, criminal justice, education, and economic mobility.
