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Exploratory Research Grant Projects

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The Productivity and Retention Effects of Soft Skills Training

This is a randomized impact evaluation of soft skills training on female worker attrition and productivity, as well as on firm revenue, profits, and productivity in the Indian garment sector.

Research Project
27 Jun 2014

How Does Energy-Efficiency Pass-Through to Product Markets? Evidence from Indian Manufacturing Firms

By hiring traders to make credible output bids to treatment and control firms, the researchers are able to collect accurate price data that allows them to test whether newly more energy-efficient firms reduce output prices.

Research Project
26 Jun 2014

Why do Some Micro-entrepreneurs do Better than Others? The Role of Innovation in Marketing Practices in Driving Performance (Stage One)

Through a field experiment on micro food retailers in Cairo, the research team investigates the importance of innovation in marketing practices for scaling and improving businesses.

Research Project
25 Jun 2014

Taxes, Vertical Integration and Productivity: Evidence from Brazilian Fiscal Reforms

Exploiting a set of tax reforms in Brazil, the author examines the impact of taxes levied at every stage of production on a firm's decision to integrate vertically, its investment, and its productivity.

Research Project
24 Jun 2014

Buying a Job, Social Institutions, and Market Access for Growth-Oriented MSMEs

As many developing countries see dozens of nearly identical micro-entrepreneurs and products concentrated in the same areas, this project tests for the existence of social institutions that pressure business owners to share total demand and evidence of collusive price-setting behaviour, using a simulated market competition with actual micro-entrepreneurs.

Research Project
22 Jun 2014

The Static and Dynamic Allocation of Jobs, Firm Productivity and the Social Impact of Employment

This project estimates the effect of limited observability of worker ability and employer statistical discrimination on the efficiency with which jobs are allocated, firm productivity, and the career effects of obtaining a job.

Research Project
22 Jun 2014

Bandits or States? Armed Groups Extraction Strategies and the Economy: Evidence from Eastern Congo

This study uses data on modern-day Eastern Congo to explore whether returns to taxation of resources can explain the establishment of protection, taxation, and dispute resolution institutions.

Research Project
21 Jun 2014

My Mobile Consultant: Mobile Based Business Advice Service for MSMEs

This project develops a mobile-based management consultancy aimed at improving business practices in Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). The researchers, together with a technological team, will develop an appropriate business advice service for MSMEs using a mobile platform and collect high-frequency data to evaluate the full impact of this product.

Research Project
20 Jun 2014

Contract Design, Business Growth, and Female Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Microfinance in India

Building on a previous randomized experiment that assessed the impact of reduced liquidity needs on investment in microenterprises and enterprise growth, this project investigates on a deeper level the effect of including liquidity grace periods in credit contracts.

Research Project
19 Jun 2014

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