Formalizing firms can potentially increase the tax base, expand safety and social protections for workers, create good jobs, and grow the economy. However, the costs and processes of formality may be too challenging for firms, particularly the smallest firms, to bear. Thus, informal firms may...

Participatory community development programs are designed to match government investments with local needs. In Morocco, where issues of inequality and poverty are high on the national agenda, a community development program, the National Initiative for Human Development, targeted high-poverty...

Early childhood development is a critical, but often neglected, phase of human development. Shortfalls in early childhood development have historically been a challenge in Morocco, with children facing unequal opportunities to develop because of the circumstances of their birth. This paper...

Forced displacement has disrupted Syrian refugees' lives and exposed them to new communities and norms. This paper assesses how gender norms shape the lives of Syrian refugee adolescent girls in Jordan, using nationally representative data. Factor analysis is used to summarize a variety of...

The impact of the growth of the local supply of public schools in the post-Colonial period on intergenerational mobility in education is a first-order question in the Arab World. This question is examined in Jordan using a unique dataset that links individual data on own schooling and parents'...