In many developing countries, unexpected income shocks are common, formal insurance is absent, and informal inter-household risk-sharing networks are unable to provide full insurance. An important question is therefore whether risk sharing within the household is effective. I conducted a field...

Formal and informal commercial sex work is a way of life for many poor women in developing countries. Though sex workers have long been identified as crucial in affecting the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the nature of sex-for-money transactions remains poorly...

This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment to test for the importance of limited commitment (due to incomplete contract enforceability) in explaining intra-household risk sharing arrangements in Kenya. The experiment followed 142 daily income earners and their spouses for 8...

An information campaign that provided Kenyan teenagers in randomly selected schools with the information that HIV prevalence was much higher among adult men and their partners than among teenage boys led to a 65% decrease in the incidence of pregnancies by adult partners among teenage girls in...