The open access version of this article is available here at the Journal of African Economies.
Abstract
Humanitarian programming in fragile economies often use unconditional cash transfers (UCT) to offset food-insecurity. However, there is an increasing focus on using cash transfers to boost household incomes beyond the short-term through micro-enterprise start-up and growth. This paper conducts a randomized control trial to measure the impact of three different sizes of business grants against UCT in Somalia. We find that giving the same amount of money as a lump-sum business grant results in higher likelihood of business ownership and income compared to UCT in the short run (3-4 months after the transfers). However, the impacts are larger and persist 3 years later only for those who received larger amount of grants. The results indicate our ‘medium’ sized grant being more cost-effective.
Increases in the minimum wage can substantially reduce earnings inequality. To demonstrate this, we combine administrative and survey data with an equilibrium model of the Brazilian labor market.
Many firms in developing countries could be too small to adopt modern technology embodied in expensive production machines. This paper shows that rental market interactions allow these small firms to increase their effective scale and mechanize production.
Tracing out the effect of large economic stimuli on the pattern of transactions in an integrated economy, and their aggregate implications, has long been a central goal of economic analysis, but until now has not been studied experimentally.
Tracing out the effect of large economic stimuli on the pattern of transactions in an integrated economy, and their aggregate implications, has long been a central goal of economic analysis, but until now has not been studied experimentally.