All articles

School reform in Liberia improved test scores but lost votes by antagonising teachers

Public service reforms can provoke political backlash from service providers, but when quality increases sufficiently, the electoral rewards can outweigh the costs

Institutions & Political Economy

Wayne Aaron Sandholtz

Published

18.10.23

Using lotteries to attract deposits: Evidence from Mexican banks

Lottery incentives in Mexico attracted unbanked households to open bank accounts and caused a persistent increase in the flow of deposits and the stock of savings

Finance

Paul Gertler Sean Higgins Aisling Scott Enrique Seira

Published

17.10.23

Integrating refugee children through teacher training

Special training for teachers in Turkey aided refugee children’s integration into the education system and improved key educational outcomes

Education

Semih Tumen Michael Vlassopoulos Jackline Wahba

Published

16.10.23

Community networks and trade: Evidence from India

Production networks matter for firm growth. However, little is known about what shapes firms’ production networks in developing countries. This column explores the role of community networks in West Bengal in firm-to-firm trade between 2010 and 2016...

Institutions & Political Economy

Johannes Boken Lucie Gadenne Tushar Nandi Marta Santamaria

Published

13.10.23

How does microenterprise growth impact child outcomes?

Enterprise growth for small businesses in India led to schooling gains for children of literate parents but schooling losses for children of illiterate parents, lowering relative intergenerational mobility

Firms

Patrick Agte Arielle Bernhardt Erica Field Rohini Pande Natalia Rigol

Published

12.10.23

The gendered effects of import competition in Peru

Chinese import competition in Peru had adverse effects on employment in the short term, which dissipates for men, but is long-lasting for low-educated women in the tradable sector

Firms

Hani Mansour Pamela Medina Andrea Velásquez

Published

10.10.23

How the surveillance state is exported through trade in AI

Autocracies and weak democracies are more likely to import facial recognition AI from China, particularly in years when they experience domestic unrest

Trade

Martin Beraja Andrew Kao David Yang Noam Yuchtman

Published

09.10.23

Better state governance reduces local environmental footprints from oil drilling, “better” corporate governance has no impact

New empirical evidence on global deforestation casts doubts on Corporate Environmental Responsibility and ESG claims that they can replace state-led regulation as a mechanism to minimise negative environmental externalities in low government capacity...

Energy & Environment

James Cust Torfinn Harding Hanna Krings Alexis Rivera-Ballesteros

Published

05.10.23

Economic development and the organisation of labour

Evidence from the Jobs of the World Project shows that as countries develop they undergo three broad transformations in the organisation of labour: the marketisation of work, the emergence of wage work, and the fractionalisation of labour into specia...

Labour Markets

Oriana Bandiera Ahmed Elsayed Anton Heil Andrea Smurra

Published

03.10.23