Gender

Cash transfer programs continue to be implemented and expanded by governments and non-government organizations in many low-income countries as a tool for poverty alleviation. When implemented at scale, such programs may have important short- and long-run implications for firms. However, there are relatively few opportunities to study how an economy responds to an exogenous shock of such a magnitude, and the response of the private sector is critical in determining how these types of shocks will propagate through the economy.

The Government of Ethiopia has embarked on an ambitious industrialization strategy based on the creation of special economic zones as centers of export-oriented light manufacturing. The flagship industrial park of this strategy is located in the city of Hawassa, in southern Ethiopia. The Hawassa Industrial Park (HIP) is one of ten industrial parks that are currently being planned and built all over Ethiopia.

This project examines the formal and informal institutions for dispute resolution used by microenterprises in Somalia, how access to them affects business outcomes and whether the provision of female-only saving and loan groups can redress gender imbalances in access to dispute resolution.

This projects seeks to understand the medium-term impacts of unconditional transfers on enterprise performance and how this varies by clan network.

This project explores an intervention to encourage the take-up of M-CADJU in Guinea-Bissau, a live-fair-price mobile phone information service that helps farmers maximise the price they receive for their produce.

Can firms be encouraged to formalise their hiring process? This project aims to answer this question in the context of Ethiopia, through an RCT that addresses two of the main factors behind the lack of formality.

This project seeks to leverage an existing relationship with a large private utility company in Pakistan to rigorously evaluate the effects of energy quality on small business' outcomes.

This project looks at the effect of providing free sanitary pads to female garment workers in Bangladesh on worker health, well-being, absenteeism and productivity.

This project exploits a relationship built by the researcher with a large scale armed organization to examine the causes of voluntary recruitment and the trajectories in the organization of individuals who joined as a response to different shocks.

How do Special Economic Zones (SEZs) impact domestic firms' outcomes in low-income countries? This project aims to answer this question looking at the case of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Vietnam.