Uganda

Embedding Agroforestry into Supply-Chains: Experimental Evidence with a Large Coffee Buyer in East Africa

Agroforestry, a farming system where trees are grown alongside crops, has the potential to help achieve multiple development objectives. It can help coffee farms combat climate change by acting as carbon sinks. Beyond reducing carbon emissions, agroforestry helps shield coffee plants from heat and heavy rains, increasing resilience to climate change. Further, products of agroforestry can provide important independent income stream to farmers facing extreme poverty.

Research Project
9 Apr 2025

Can microentrepreneurs increase their profits by moving business locations?

There is variation in the wages and profits that people earn in different locations, as evidenced by rural-urban wage gaps within low-income countries and income variation between commuting zones in higher income countries.

Research Note
6 Mar 2025

Tax Audits and Their Distortionary Effects

Tax audits are essential for governments to raise revenue but they can create economic distortions. To avoid the financial burden of an audit, firms may remain small, move to the informal sector, or shut down.

Working Paper
18 Feb 2025

Moving to Profitability? Alleviating Constraints on Microentrepreneur Location

Observationally similar business owners earn vastly different profits across city locations within Kampala, Uganda.

Working Paper
20 Nov 2024

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Empowering Female Entrepreneurs Through Female Mentors

Among the millions of entrepreneurs in developing economies, few are able to earn a decent livelihood. To help these entrepreneurs succeed, governmental and nongovernmental organizations invest billions of dollars every year in providing training programs.

Journal Article
19 Nov 2024

Private Sector Development in Low Income Economies: The Case of Uganda

This project implements a field experiment to unpack demand- and supply-side constraints for quality upgrading in Ugandan carpentry, and study the interaction between these two sources of constraints.

Research Project
28 Oct 2024

The economic burden of tax enforcement

This project studies the cost imposed by tax enforcement measures on firms in Uganda.

Research Project
28 Oct 2024

Overcoming Coordination Failures in Informal Urban Transport Networks

This project is a randomised controlled trial designed to test whether there are market failures in the spatial distribution of private-market transit in low-income cities and if they can be corrected using temporary route creation subsidies. The project also tests whether there are different groups under-served by existing urban transit alignment.

Research Project
28 Oct 2024

Do Information Frictions and Corruption Perceptions Kill Competition? A Field Experiment on Public Procurement in Uganda

Addressing firms’ misperceptions about the integrity of public entities boosts participation in Uganda’s public procurement. In contrast, addressing the lack of transparency alone fails to increase competition.

Research Note
11 Oct 2024

Do Information Frictions and Corruption Perceptions Kill Competition? A Field Experiment on Public Procurement in Uganda

We study whether information frictions and corruption perceptions deter firms from doing business with the government.

Working Paper
1 Feb 2024

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