We present field experimental evidence that limited information about workseekers' skills distorts both firm and workseeker behavior. Assessing workseekers' skills, giving workseekers their assessment results, and helping them to credibly share the results with firms increases workseekers'...

As of 2019, more than 1.2 million Venezuelans have passed through Ecuador and over 400,000 settled in, which amounts to almost 3% of Ecuador's population. This paper analyzes the location choices of Venezuelan migrants within Ecuador and the labor market consequences of these choices, using data...

Ecuador has become the third largest receiver of the 4.3 million Venezuelans that left their country in the last five years, hosting around 10% of them. Little is known about the characteristics of these migrants and their labor market outcomes. This paper fills this gap, analyzing a new large...

Formal sector entry-level jobs in Mexico offer low starting salaries but substantial wage growth. This paper experimentally tests whether a six-months wage incentive can increase formal employment among secondary school graduates. Combining survey and high-frequency social security data, the...

In low-income communities in both rich and poor countries, redistributive transfers within kin and social networks are frequent. Such arrangements may distort labor supply - acting as a "social tax" that dampens the incentive to work. We document that across countries, from Cote d'Ivoire to the...

Governments around the developing world face pressure to intervene actively to help jobseekers find employment. Two of the most common policies used are job training, based on the idea that many of those seeking jobs lack the skills employers want, and job search assistance, based on the...

How do truck drivers perceive the risk they face from automation and their opportunities to retrain for employment in a different occupation? Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology has made rapid progress in recent years, so these questions are likely salient to truckers. Based on surveys of the new...

The analysis presented in this paper defines three different synthetic measurements of disincentives for formal work: two standard measurements, namely the tax wedge and the marginal effective tax rate (METR); and a new, innovative measurement called formalization tax rate (FTR). The novelty of...

The paper examines severance pay programs around the world by providing the first ever overview of existing programs, examining their historic development, assessing their economic rationale and describing current reform attempts. While a significant part of the paper is devoted to a...

Partnering with a savings product provider in Kenya, we tested the extent to which behavioral interventions and financial incentives can increase the saving rate of individuals with low and irregular income. Our experiment lasted for six months and included a total of twelve conditions. The...