Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)

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      in Environment

      Empowering people to adapt on the frontlines of climate change

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      On April 11, MIT announced five multiyear flagship projects in the first-ever Climate Grand Challenges, a new initiative to tackle complex climate problems and deliver breakthrough solutions to the world as quickly as possible. This article is the fifth in a five-part series highlighting the most promising concepts to emerge from the competition and the interdisciplinary research teams behind them.

      In the coastal south of Bangladesh, rice paddies that farmers could once harvest three times a year lie barren. Sea-level rise brings saltwater to the soil, ruining the staple crop. It’s one of many impacts, and inequities, of climate change. Despite producing less than 1 percent of global carbon emissions, Bangladesh is suffering more than most countries. Rising seas, heat waves, flooding, and cyclones threaten 90 million people.

      A platform being developed in a collaboration between MIT and BRAC, a Bangladesh-based global development organization, aims to inform and empower climate-threatened communities to proactively adapt to a changing future. Selected as one of five MIT Climate Grand Challenges flagship projects, the Climate Resilience Early Warning System (CREWSnet) will forecast the local impacts of climate change on people’s lives, homes, and livelihoods. These forecasts will guide BRAC’s development of climate-resiliency programs to help residents prepare for and adapt to life-altering conditions.

      “The communities that CREWSnet will focus on have done little to contribute to the problem of climate change in the first place. However, because of socioeconomic situations, they may be among the most vulnerable. We hope that by providing state-of-the-art projections and sharing them broadly with communities, and working through partners like BRAC, we can help improve the capacity of local communities to adapt to climate change, significantly,” says Elfatih Eltahir, the H.M. King Bhumibol Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

      Eltahir leads the project with John Aldridge and Deborah Campbell in the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Systems Group at Lincoln Laboratory. Additional partners across MIT include the Center for Global Change Science; the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change; and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. 

      Predicting local risks

      CREWSnet’s forecasts rely upon a sophisticated model, developed in Eltahir’s research group over the past 25 years, called the MIT Regional Climate Model. This model zooms in on climate processes at local scales, at a resolution as granular as 6 miles. In Bangladesh’s population-dense cities, a 6-mile area could encompass tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of people. The model takes into account the details of a region’s topography, land use, and coastline to predict changes in local conditions.

      When applying this model over Bangladesh, researchers found that heat waves will get more severe and more frequent over the next 30 years. In particular, wet-bulb temperatures, which indicate the ability for humans to cool down by sweating, will rise to dangerous levels rarely observed today, particularly in western, inland cities.

      Such hot spots exacerbate other challenges predicted to worsen near Bangladesh’s coast. Rising sea levels and powerful cyclones are eroding and flooding coastal communities, causing saltwater to surge into land and freshwater. This salinity intrusion is detrimental to human health, ruins drinking water supplies, and harms crops, livestock, and aquatic life that farmers and fishermen depend on for food and income.

      CREWSnet will fuse climate science with forecasting tools that predict the social and economic impacts to villages and cities. These forecasts — such as how often a crop season may fail, or how far floodwaters will reach — can steer decision-making.

      “What people need to know, whether they’re a governor or head of a household, is ‘What is going to happen in my area, and what decisions should I make for the people I’m responsible for?’ Our role is to integrate this science and technology together into a decision support system,” says Aldridge, whose group at Lincoln Laboratory specializes in this area. Most recently, they transitioned a hurricane-evacuation planning system to the U.S. government. “We know that making decisions based on climate change requires a deep level of trust. That’s why having a powerful partner like BRAC is so important,” he says.

      Testing interventions

      Established 50 years ago, just after Bangladesh’s independence, BRAC works in every district of the nation to provide social services that help people rise from extreme poverty. Today, it is one of the world’s largest nongovernmental organizations, serving 110 million people across 11 countries in Asia and Africa, but its success is cultivated locally.

      “BRAC is thrilled to partner with leading researchers at MIT to increase climate resilience in Bangladesh and provide a model that can be scaled around the globe,” says Donella Rapier, president and CEO of BRAC USA. “Locally led climate adaptation solutions that are developed in partnership with communities are urgently needed, particularly in the most vulnerable regions that are on the frontlines of climate change.”

      CREWSnet will help BRAC identify communities most vulnerable to forecasted impacts. In these areas, they will share knowledge and innovate or bolster programs to improve households’ capacity to adapt.

      Many climate initiatives are already underway. One program equips homes to filter and store rainwater, as salinity intrusion makes safe drinking water hard to access. Another program is building resilient housing, able to withstand 120-mile-per-hour winds, that can double as local shelters during cyclones and flooding. Other services are helping farmers switch to different livestock or crops better suited for wetter or saltier conditions (e.g., ducks instead of chickens, or salt-tolerant rice), providing interest-free loans to enable this change.

      But adapting in place will not always be possible, for example in areas predicted to be submerged or unbearably hot by midcentury. “Bangladesh is working on identifying and developing climate-resilient cities and towns across the country, as closer-by alternative destinations as compared to moving to Dhaka, the overcrowded capital of Bangladesh,” says Campbell. “CREWSnet can help identify regions better suited for migration, and climate-resilient adaptation strategies for those regions.” At the same time, BRAC’s Climate Bridge Fund is helping to prepare cities for climate-induced migration, building up infrastructure and financial services for people who have been displaced.

      Evaluating impact

      While CREWSnet’s goal is to enable action, it can’t quite measure the impact of those actions. The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a development economics program in the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, will help evaluate the effectiveness of the climate-adaptation programs.

      “We conduct randomized controlled trials, similar to medical trials, that help us understand if a program improved people’s lives,” says Claire Walsh, the project director of the King Climate Action Initiative at J-PAL. “Once CREWSnet helps BRAC implement adaptation programs, we will generate scientific evidence on their impacts, so that BRAC and CREWSnet can make a case to funders and governments to expand effective programs.”

      The team aspires to bring CREWSnet to other nations disproportionately impacted by climate change. “Our vision is to have this be a globally extensible capability,” says Campbell. CREWSnet’s name evokes another early-warning decision-support system, FEWSnet, that helped organizations address famine in eastern Africa in the 1980s. Today it is a pillar of food-security planning around the world.

      CREWSnet hopes for a similar impact in climate change planning. Its selection as an MIT Climate Grand Challenges flagship project will inject the project with more funding and resources, momentum that will also help BRAC’s fundraising. The team plans to deploy CREWSnet to southwestern Bangladesh within five years.

      “The communities that we are aspiring to reach with CREWSnet are deeply aware that their lives are changing — they have been looking climate change in the eye for many years. They are incredibly resilient, creative, and talented,” says Ashley Toombs, the external affairs director for BRAC USA. “As a team, we are excited to bring this system to Bangladesh. And what we learn together, we will apply at potentially even larger scales.” More

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      J-PAL North America announces five new partnerships with state and local governments

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      J-PAL North America, a research center in MIT’s Department of Economics, has announced five new partnerships with state and local governments across the United States after a call for proposals in early February. Over the next year, these partners will work with J-PAL North America’s State and Local Innovation Initiative to evaluate policy-relevant questions critical to alleviating poverty in the United States.

      J-PAL North America will work with the Colorado Department of Higher Education, Ohio’s Franklin County Department of Job and Family Services, the New Mexico Public Education Department, Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce, and Oregon’s Jackson County Fire District 3. Each partner will leverage support from J-PAL North America to develop randomized evaluations, which have the potential to reveal widely applicable lessons about which programs and policies are most effective. 

      State and local leaders are vital stakeholders in developing rigorous evidence in order to understand which policies and programs work to reduce poverty, and why. By supporting each government partner in developing these five evaluation projects, the voice of policymakers and practitioners will remain a central part of the research process. Each of this year’s selected projects seeks to address policy concerns that have been identified by state and local governments in J-PAL North America’s State and Local Learning Agenda as key areas for addressing barriers to mobility from poverty, including environment, education, economic security, and housing stability. 

      One project looks to mitigate the emission of carbon co-pollutants, which cause disproportionately high rates of health problems among communities experiencing poverty. 

      Oregon’s Jackson County Fire District 3 will investigate the impact of subsidies on the uptake of wildfire risk reduction activities in a county severely affected by wildfires. “Wildfires have become more prevalent, longer lasting, and more destructive in Oregon and across the western United States. We also know that wildfire is disproportionately impacting our most vulnerable populations,” says Bob Horton, fire chief of Jackson County Fire District 3. “With technical support from JPAL North America’s staff and this grant funding, we will devise the most current and effective strategy, deeply rooted in the evidence, to drive the take-up of home-hardening behaviors — methods to increase a home’s resistance to fire — and lower the risk to homes when faced with wildfire.” 

      This project is in alignment with the priorities of J-PAL’s Environment, Energy, and Climate Change sector and its agenda for catalyzing more policy-relevant research on adaptation strategies. 

      Policymakers and researchers have also identified programs aimed at increasing opportunity within education as a key priority for evaluation. In partnering with J-PAL North America, the Colorado Department of Higher Education will assess the impact of My Colorado Journey, an online platform available to all Coloradans that provides information on education, training, and career pathways. 

      “As Colorado builds back stronger from the pandemic, we know that education and workforce development are at the center of Colorado’s recovery agenda,” shares Executive Director Angie Paccione of the Colorado Department of Education. “Platforms like My Colorado Journey are key to supporting the education, training, and workforce exploration of Coloradans of any age. With support from J-PAL North America, we can better understand how to effectively serve Coloradans, further enhance this vital platform, and continue to build a Colorado for all.”

      Similarly, the New Mexico Public Education Department proposes their intervention within the context of New Mexico’s community school state initiative. They will look at the impact of case management and cash transfers on students at risk of multiple school transfers throughout their education, which include children who are experiencing homelessness, migrant children, children in the foster care system, and military-connected children, among others. “New Mexico is delighted to partner with J-PAL North America to explore visionary pathways to success for highly mobile students,” says New Mexico Public Education Secretary (Designate) Kurt Steinhaus. “We look forward to implementing and testing innovative solutions, such as cash transfers, that can expand our current nationally recognized community schools strategy. Together, we aim to find solutions that meet the needs of highly mobile students and families who lack stable housing.”

      Another key priority for the intersection of policy and research is economic security — fostering upward mobility by providing individuals with resources to promote stable incomes and increase standards of living. By adjusting caseworker employment services to better align with local needs, Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DEDC) looks to understand how individualized services can impact employment and earnings. 

      “The commitment of the government of Puerto Rico is to develop human resources to the highest quality standards,” says DEDC Secretary Cidre Miranda, whose statement was provided in Spanish and translated. “For the DEDC, it is fundamental to contribute to the development of initiatives like this one, because they have the objective of forging the future professionals that Puerto Rico requires and needs.” J-PAL North America’s partnership with DEDC has the potential to provide valuable lessons for other state and local programs also seeking to promote economic security. 

      Finally, Ohio’s Franklin County Department of Job and Family Services seeks to understand the impact of an eviction prevention workshop in a county with eviction rates that are higher than both the state and national average. “Stable housing should not be a luxury, but for far too many Franklin County families it has become one,” Deputy Franklin County Administrator Joy Bivens says. “We need to view our community’s affordable housing crisis through both a social determinants of health and racial equity lens. We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with J-PAL North America to ensure we are pursuing research-based interventions that, yes, address immediate housing needs, but also provide long-term stability so they can climb the economic ladder.”

      Franklin County Department of Job and Family Services’ evaluation aligns with policymaker and researcher interests to ensure safe and affordable housing. This partnership will have great potential to not only improve resources local to Franklin County, but, along with each of the other four agencies, can also provide a useful model for other government agencies facing similar challenges.For more information on state and local policy priorities, see J-PAL North America’s State and Local Learning Agenda. To learn more about the State and Local Innovation Initiative, please visit the Initiative webpage or contact Initiative Manager Louise Geraghty. More

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      The power of economics to explain and shape the world

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      Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo sympathizes with students who have no interest in her field. She was such a student herself — until an undergraduate research post gave her the chance to learn first-hand that economists address many of the major issues facing human and planetary well-being.“Most people have a wrong view of what economics is. They just see economists on television discussing what’s going to happen to the stock market,” says Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics. “But what people do in the field is very broad. Economists grapple with the real world and with the complexity that goes with it.”

      That’s why this year Duflo has teamed up with Professor Abhijit Banerjee to offer 14.009 (Economics and Society’s Greatest Problems), a first-year discovery subject — a class type designed to give undergraduates a low-pressure, high-impact way to explore a field. In this case, they are exploring the range of issues that economists engage with every day: the economic dimensions of climate change, international trade, racism, justice, education, poverty, health care, social preferences, and economic growth are just a few of the topics the class covers.“We think it’s pretty important that the first exposure to economics is via issues,” Duflo says. “If you first get exposed to economics via models, these models necessarily have to be very simplified, and then students get the idea that economics is a simplistic view of the world that can’t explain much.”Arguably, Duflo and Banerjee have been disproving that view throughout their careers. In 2003, the pair founded MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a leading antipoverty research network that provides scientific evidence on what methods actually work to alleviate poverty — which enables governments and nongovernmental organizations to implement truly effective programs and social policies. And, in 2019 they won the Nobel Prize in economics (together with Michael Kremer of the University of Chicago) for their innovative work applying laboratory-style randomized, controlled trials to research a wide range of topics implicated in global poverty.“Super cool”

      First-year Jean Billa, one of the students in 14.009, says, “Economics isn’t just about how money flows, but about how people react to certain events. That was an interesting discovery for me.”

      It’s also precisely the lesson Banerjee and Duflo hoped students would take away from 14.009, a class that centers on weekly in-person discussions of the professors’ recorded lectures — many of which align with chapters in Banerjee and Duflo’s book “Good Economics for Hard Times” (Public Affairs, 2019).Classes typically start with a poll in which the roughly 100 enrolled students can register their views on that week’s topic. Then, students get to discuss the issue, says senior Dina Atia, teaching assistant for the class. Noting that she finds it “super cool” that Nobelists are teaching MIT’s first-year students, Atia points out that both Duflo and Banerjee have also made themselves available to chat with students after class. “They’re definitely extending themselves,” she says.“We want the students to get excited about economics so they want to know more,” says Banerjee, the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics, “because this is a field that can help us address some of the biggest problems society faces.” Using natural experiments to test theories

      Early in the term, for example, the topic was migration. In the lecture, Duflo points out that migration policies are often impacted by the fear that unskilled migrants will overwhelm a region, taking jobs from residents and demanding social services. Yet, migrant flows in normal years represent just 3 percent of the world population. “There is no flood. There is no vast movement of migrants,” she says.Duflo then explains that economists were able to learn a lot about migration thanks to a “natural experiment,” the Mariel boat lift. This 1980 event brought roughly 125,000 unskilled Cubans to Florida over a matter a months, enabling economists to study the impacts of a sudden wave of migration. Duflo says a look at real wages before and after the migration showed no significant impacts.“It was interesting to see that most theories about immigrants were not justified,” Billa says. “That was a real-life situation, and the results showed that even a massive wave of immigration didn’t change work in the city [Miami].”

      Question assumptions, find the facts in dataSince this is a broad survey course, there is always more to unpack. The goal, faculty say, is simply to help students understand the power of economics to explain and shape the world. “We are going so fast from topic to topic, I don’t expect them to retain all the information,” Duflo says. Instead, students are expected to gain an appreciation for a way of thinking. “Economics is about questioning everything — questioning assumptions you don’t even know are assumptions and being sophisticated about looking at data to uncover the facts.”To add impact, Duflo says she and Banerjee tie lessons to current events and dive more deeply into a few economic studies. One class, for example, focused on the unequal burden the Covid-19 pandemic has placed on different demographic groups and referenced research by Harvard University professor Marcella Alsan, who won a MacArthur Fellowship this fall for her work studying the impact of racism on health disparities.

      Duflo also revealed that at the beginning of the pandemic, she suspected that mistrust of the health-care system could prevent Black Americans from taking certain measures to protect themselves from the virus. What she discovered when she researched the topic, however, was that political considerations outweighed racial influences as a predictor of behavior. “The lesson for you is, it’s good to question your assumptions,” she told the class.“Students should ideally understand, by the end of class, why it’s important to ask questions and what they can teach us about the effectiveness of policy and economic theory,” Banerjee says. “We want people to discover the range of economics and to understand how economists look at problems.”

      Story by MIT SHASS CommunicationsEditorial and design director: Emily HiestandSenior writer: Kathryn O’Neill More