How does informal economic activity respond to increased financial inclusion? Does it become more entrepreneurial? Does access to new financing options change the gender configuration of informal economic activity and, if so, in what ways and what directions? We take advantage of nationwide data...

Drawing upon theoretical insights from the Job Demand-Control model, which links occupational characteristics to health, this paper provides the first causal evidence of the physical and mental health consequences of self-employment. Specifically, I utilize German longitudinal data for the...

We assess, via an experiment across 207 secondary schools, how a comprehensive teacher training program affects the delivery of a major entrepreneurship curriculum reform in Rwanda. The reform introduced interactive pedagogy and a focus on business skills in the country’s required upper...

The persistently high employment share of the informal sector makes entrepreneurship a necessity for youth in many developing countries. We exploit exogenous variation in the implementation of Rwanda's entrepreneurship education reform in secondary schools to evaluate its effect on student...

University students' smartphone use has recently been shown to negatively affect their academic performance. Surprisingly, research testing the empirical validity of potential mechanisms underlying this relationship is very limited. In particular, indirect effects of negative health consequences...

To study the causal impact of smartphone use on academic performance, we collected - for the first time worldwide - longitudinal data on students' smartphone use and educational performance. For three consecutive years we surveyed all students attending classes in eleven different study...

We use the American Community Survey (ACS) to investigate the extent to which college major decisions were affected during and after the Great Recession with special attention to business and STEM fields, as well as the heterogeneity by gender, race/ethnicity and combinations of race/ethnicity...

Social distancing requirements associated with COVID-19 (coronavirus) have led to school closures. In mid-April, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization reported that 192 countries had closed all schools and universities, affecting more than 90 percent of the...

We present a novel theory that immigrants facilitate innovation and entrepreneur-ship by being willing and able to invest in new skills. Immigrants whose human capitalis not immediately transferable to the host country face lower opportunity costs ofinvesting in new skills or methods and will be...

Self-employment contributes to employment growth and innovativeness and many individuals want to become self-employed due to the autonomy and exibility it brings. Using "subjective well-being" as a broad summary measure that evaluates an individual's experience of being self-employed, the...