We experimentally study the impact of substantially larger enterprise loans, in collaboration with an Egyptian lender. Larger loans generate small average impacts, but machine learning using psychometric data reveals dramatic heterogeneity. Top-performers (i.e., those with the highest predicted...

The paper presents a dynamic portfolio model under currency inconvertibility which rationalizes the recent Egyptian experience of real exchange rate appreciation and currency diversification following the increase in oil exports and the partial financial liberalization that took place after...

This paper contains the basic statistical material upon which Effective Rates of Protection (ERPs), Domestic Resource Costs (DRCs), and crop acreage responses were calculated by the authors for their volume on Egypt in the NBER project Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development. This...

School quality and grade completion by students are shown to be directly linked, leading to very different perspectives on educational policy in developing countries. Unique panel data on primary school age children in Egypt permit estimation of behavioral models of school leaving. Students...

The rise of civilizations involved the dual emergence of economies that could produce surplus ("prosperity") and states that could protect surplus ("security"). But the joint achievement of security and prosperity had to escape a paradox: prosperity attracts predation, and higher insecurity...

We develop a micro-founded general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents and three dimensions of financial inclusion: access (determined by a participation cost), depth (determined by a borrowing constraint), and intermediation efficiency (determined by a monitoring cost). We find that the...

We conduct a randomized experiment that generates exogenous variation in the access to foreign markets for rug producers in Egypt. Combined with detailed survey data, we causally identify the impact of exporting on firm performance. Treatment firms report 16-26 percent higher profits and exhibit...

Optimal transportation policies depend on demand elasticities that interact across modes and vary across the population, but understanding how and why these elasticities vary has been an empirical challenge. Using an experiment with Uber in Egypt, we randomly assign large price discounts for...

During Egypt's Arab Spring, unprecedented popular mobilization and protests brought down Hosni Mubarak's government and ushered in an era of competition between three groups: elites associated with Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP), the military, and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood....

This paper contributes to what is known about the impact of school quality, by documenting its effect on the incomes of Black South Africans, using data from the 1996 South African census and two national surveys of school quality. South Africa provides an interesting laboratory for studying the...