Using data from 18 countries, we investigate the effects of child marriage bans on infant and under-5 mortality. We use variation in mothers' exposure to the ban across cohorts within each country and regional variation in "treatment intensity," calculated based on child marriage prevalence and...

Do local labor markets influence the effectiveness of educational policies? To answer this question, we focus on Mexico's conditional cash transfer program, PROGRESA, documented to have increased educational attainment. We show that PROGRESA's impact on schooling was smaller in areas with more...

This paper estimates the effects of a 2008 policy that eliminated tuition fees at public universities in Ecuador. We use a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits variation across cohorts differentially exposed to the policy, as well as geographic variation in access to public...

Can democratically elected politicians persuade their constituents to alter policy priorities? With little empirical support for this hypothesis to date, we propose that Rodrigo Duterte's inauguration speech on June 30, 2016 systematically shifted the Filipinos' policy agenda toward prioritizing...

This paper evaluates a Filipino policy that expanded health insurance coverage of its senior citizens, aged 60 and older, in 2014. Using regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences methods, we find that the expansion increases insurance coverage by approximately 16 percentage points....

This paper examines whether globalization promotes female empowerment by improving the jobs available to women. Previous work has documented that exporting causally improved working conditions at predominantly female garment factories in Myanmar. In this study, restricting to garment factory...

Aspirations and plans for the future can influence investments made today. Gender gaps in these views can perpetuate gender gaps in outcomes. In this paper, we explore how gender gaps in aspirations and expectations are affected by the local labor market. Using a national longitudinal survey...

How do parents contend with threats to the health and survival of their children? Can the social safety net mitigate negative economic effects through transfers to affected families? We study these questions by combining the universe of cancer diagnoses among Danish children with register data...

When it comes to mental health, do social protection programs matter more in times of crisis? Using panel data from the Philippines around the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study compares depression rates among beneficiaries of an existing conditional cash transfer program to those of...