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J-PAL: Background and Organization

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) was founded in June 2003 by Professors Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Sendhil Mullainathan as a research center within the Department of Economics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2005, it was renamed in honor of Abdul Latif Jameel.

J-PAL is best understood as a network of affiliated researchers. These affiliated researchers are professors at universities throughout the US and the world, united by their use of the randomized trial methodology and their efforts to use this tool to answer questions critical to poverty alleviation in developing countries. Each of these professors sets their own research agenda, fundraise to support their research, and hire research assistants who help with the implementation and analysis of their randomized trials. J-PAL currently has 34 affiliates at 21 universities. The majority of J-PAL employees are these research assistants, who are based throughout the world at field sites and at the affiliates’ universities.

J-PAL has two regional offices, one in South Asia and one in Europe. The South Asia office is based at the Institute for Financial Management and Research, in Chennai, India, and the European region office is based at the Paris School of Economics in France. The Europe office focuses both on Europe and Francophone Africa. Both were founded in 2007. They promote the use of randomized evaluations, disseminate J-PAL’s research findings to policymakers in the region, and support randomized evaluations run by J-PAL affiliates. A new Latin American office is planned for late 2009, and will be based at the Pontifica Universidad Catolica in Santiago, Chile.