Using data from the Rural Ethiopian Household Survey, which contains a behavioral module, we explore the link between adult risk and time preferences and the incidence and the intensity of child labor. While as expected child labor at both the extensive and the intensive margin is a result of...

We analyse the effect of parental risk preferences and a novel measure of maternal bargaining power over educational expenses - elicited via lab-in-the-field experiments in rural Côte d'Ivoire - on the educational progression of boys and girls. Data from 135 couples and their children show that...

This paper proposes a novel experimental measure of women's relative bargaining power, relates this measure to expenditures on various household public goods, and studies its determinants. A key question we address in the process is whether higher bargaining power for women translates into...

The recent enactment of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India has been widely hailed a policy that provides a safety net for the rural poor with the potential to boost rural income, stabilize agricultural production and reduce rural-urban migration. This paper, models the impact...

Ethnic conflicts and their links to international human trafficking have recently received a surge in international attention. It appears that ethnic conflicts exacerbate the internal displacement of individuals from networks of family and community, and their access to economic and social...

In many countries, non-compliance with minimum wage legislation is widespread, and authorities may be seen as having turned a blind eye to a legislation that they have themselves passed. But if enforcement is imperfect, how effective can a minimum wage be? And if non-compliance is widespread,...

Both raw intuition and past experience suggest that the success of an employment guarantee scheme (EGS) in safeguarding the welfare of the poor depends both on the wage it promises, and the ease with which any worker can gain access. An EGS is thus at once a wage guarantee and a rationing...

We study the impact of tax and minimum wage reforms on the incidence of informality. To gauge the incidence of informality, we use measures of the extent of tax evasion, the extent of minimum wage non-compliance, and the size of the informal workforce. Our approach allows us to examine (i) the...

We explore three hitherto poorly understood characteristics of the human trafficking market - the cross-border ease of mobility of traffickers, the relative bargaining strength of traffickers and final buyers, and the elasticity of buyers' demand. In a model of two-way bargaining, the exact...

Two stylized representations are often found in the academic and policy literature on informality and formality in developing countries. The first is that the informal (or unregulated) sector is more competitive than the formal (or regulated) sector. The second is that contract enforcement is...