All articles

How does trade affect income inequality? Evidence from Ecuador

New measures of export and import exposure at the individual level show that international trade increases earnings inequality in Ecuador

Trade

Rodrigo Adão Paul Carrillo Arnaud Costinot Dave Donaldson Dina Pomeranz

Published

02.10.23

Constructing roads connected labour markets but increased harmful crop fires in rural India

Constructing rural roads in India caused farm labour exits, which increased the use of crop fires that hurt downwind communities

Energy & Environment

Teevrat Garg Maulik Jagnani Hemant Pullabhotla

Published

28.09.23

Simplifying communication dramatically increased job application rates on a platform in Pakistan

Lowering the psychological cost of initiating job applications dramatically increases application rates without lowering the average return to each job application

Labour Markets

Maniha Aftab Aiman Farrukh Erica Field Robert Garlick Sarah Hussain Lala Rukh Khan Nivedhitha Subramanian Kate Vyborny

Published

25.09.23

How does promoting modern seed varieties impact forest conservation?

Promoting modern seed varieties accelerated the deforestation of primary forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Energy & Environment

Tanguy Bernard Sylvie Lambert Karen Macours Margaux Vinez

Published

21.09.23

Improving frontline courts in India spurred local economic development

Increasing judicial staffing in frontline courts lowers the pending backlog of legal cases and enables capital stuck in litigation to be put to more productive uses, which increases access to working capital for local firms and improves firm producti...

Firms

Manaswini Rao

Published

19.09.23

Cash transfers reduce adult and child mortality rates in low- and middle-income countries

Evidence from 37 low- and middle-income countries shows that cash transfer programmes were associated with a 20% reduction in mortality for adult women and an 8% reduction in mortality for children aged <5 years

Health

Aaron Richterman Harsha Thirumurthy

Published

18.09.23

Can local ownership solve the resource curse in weak states? Evidence from Nigerian oil

Oil multinationals in Nigeria divesting their onshore assets to local firms resulted in substantial improvements in output and declines in oil theft and violence, driven by politically connected firms

Institutions & Political Economy

Jonah Rexer

Published

14.09.23

Persuading voters in India to punish vote-buying candidates

A radio campaign highlighting the costs of vote buying drew close to 3 million votes away from vote-buying parties

Institutions & Political Economy

Laura Schechter Srinivasan Vasudevan

Published

12.09.23

Does empowering women to communicate at home improve child health outcomes?

Adding communication skills training to health classes for mothers in Uganda increased women’s voice in household decisions but not sufficiently to generate transformative impacts on most child health outcomes

Health

Martina Björkman-Nyqvist Seema Jayachandran Céline Zipfel

Published

11.09.23