Using data from BRIGHT, an integrated program that aims to improve school participation in rural communities in Burkina Faso, we investigate the impact of school subsidies and increased access to education on child work. Regression discontinuity estimates demonstrate that, while BRIGHT...

This paper sheds light on the role of family networks in the dynamics of a West African labour market, i.e. in the transitions from unemployment to employment, from wage employment to self-employment, and from self-employment to wage employment. It investigates the effects of three dimensions of...

Talented individuals are seen as drivers of long-term growth, but how do they realize their full potential? In this paper, I show that even in a group of high-IQ men and women, lifetime earnings are substantially influenced by their education and personality traits. I identify a previously...

A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality...

This paper investigates whether education and working in a physically demanding job causally impact temporary work incapacity, i.e. sickness absence, and permanent work incapacity, i.e. the inflow to disability via sickness absence. Our contribution is to allow endogeneity of both education and...

We propose a Bayesian factor analysis model to rank the health of localities. Mortality and morbidity variables empirically contribute to the resulting rank, and population and spatial correlation are incorporated into a measure of uncertainty. We use county-level data from Texas and Wisconsin...

This paper is motivated by the idea that the enlargement of the European Union is only one part of an overall process, known as economic integration, which characterizes the involvement of European economies into the global division of labor. Therefore, the paper aims at providing a quantitative...

The multivariate technique of factor analysis is used to combine several indicators of economic integration and international transactions into a single measure or index of globalization. The index is an alternative to the simple measure of openness based on trade, and it produces a ranking of...

The shortages of entrepreneurial skills have lowered search effectiveness of potential young entrepreneurs and the rate of youth start-ups. Our paper contributes to closing a gap in the entrepreneurship and development literature with a model of costly firm creation and skill differences between...

This paper explores the effects of remittance receipt on child labour in an African context. We focus on Burkina Faso, a country with a high prevalence of child labour and a high rate of migration. Given the complex relationship between remittance receipt and household time allocation decisions,...