Commitment devices offer an opportunity to restrict future choices. However, if severe restrictions deter participation, weaker restrictions may be a more effective means of changing behavior. We test this using a school-based commitment savings device for educational expenses in Uganda. We...

Women and men often receive the same percentage increase in their wage rates with advances in schooling. Because these returns decline with more schooling, the marginal returns for women will tend to exceed those for men, especially in countries where women are much less educated. The health and...

A consensus has been forged in the last decade that recent periods of sustained growth in total factor productivity and reduced poverty are closely associated with improvements in a population's child nutrition, adult health, and schooling, particularly in low-income countries. Estimates of the...

Can one teach entrepreneurship, or is it a fixed personal characteristic? Most academic and policy discussion on microentrepreneurs in developing countries focuses on their access to credit, and assumes their human capital to be fixed. However, a growing number of microfinance organizations are...

Despite the lower quality of education provided Africans compared with whites in South Africa, the percentage wage gains associated with additional years of primary, secondary, and higher education are substantially larger for Africans than for whites in 1993, and they increase for both race...

This paper assesses the empirical relationship between the liberalization of international trade and the economic status of women. Although historically globalization is not generally linked to the advancement of women, several recent country studies find export led growth in middle and low...

This paper evaluates how the Progresa Program, which provides poor mothers in rural Mexico with education grants, has affected enrollment. Poor children who reside in communities randomly selected to participate in the initial phase of the Progresa are compared to those who reside in other...