ITAM has established a collaborative agreement with J-PAL LAC, a non-profit research center that seeks to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life in Latin America and the Caribbean by using evidence to guide public policies and social programs. ITAM established the agreement as part of its mission to seek a more just, prosperous and freer society. The center’s headquarters in Mexico will be located in the research building at the Santa Teresa campus.

At the inauguration ceremony, provost Alejandro Hernández noted the benefits for ITAM of the alliance with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, Latin America and the Caribbean, and he introduced Dr. Sebastián Galiani, who is the center’s scientific director and a professor in the Economics Department at the University of Maryland.

Galiani lectured about his study, “The causal effect of competition on prices and quality; evidence from a field experiment,” discussing the effects of introducing competition in a market through a program in the Dominican Republic. As part of the study, cards were provided to people for purchases in certain stores. As a result, there was an increase in the number of businesses where those cards could be used. The main effects, he said, were a decrease of 6 percent in prices, a switch of stores among 14 percent of the residents, and no significant change in the quality of the service or of the products.

To celebrate the agreement, a reception was held for J-PAL collaborators as well as ITAM administrators and faculty. J-PAL is a network of 131 affiliated professors from more than 40 universities.