The shift from subsistence to commercial economies creates surplus, but often induces conflict over it. Under extractive institutions and weak contract enforcement, crony capitalism may emerge and limit the benefits of modernization.
Sending SMS messages with agricultural advice to smallholder farmers increased yields by 11.5% relative to a control group with no messages. These effects are concentrated among farmers who had no agronomy training and had little interaction with sugar cane company staff at baseline.
In Ethiopia, Blattman, Dercon and Franklin (2019) randomly assign mostly female jobseekers to receive an industrial job offer or an unconditional cash transfer, meant to spur self-employment.
Multiple field experiments report positive financial returns to capital shocks for male and not female microentrepreneurs. But these analyses overlook the fact that female entrepreneurs often reside with male entrepreneurs.
Colonnelli and Prem (2019) estimate the causal real economic effects of a randomized anticorruption crackdown on local governments in Brazil over the period 2003-2014.
In this paper, Kamutando (2019) examines the link between financial constraints, misallocation and firm growth in the informal manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe.
Chacha and Edwards (2019) analyses the effect of fragility in destination markets on firm export behavior and the role of firm size in mediating adverse outcomes.
Special economic zones (SEZs) or industrial parks can be an effective instrument to promote industrialization and structural transformation, but only when implemented properly in the right context. More than 50 years of experience with special export zones yields a mixed picture.