The two major earthquakes which struck northwestern Turkey in 1999, caused enormous amounts of death and destruction, and exposed rampant government corruption involving construction and zoning code violations, as a factor magnifying the disaster. The opposition parties and one of the incumbent...

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...

We estimate the impact of a village-level assistance program run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania on literacy and schooling. The programs are partly funded by official development assistance from the US and EU. Villages in northwestern Tanzania are economically isolated but are...

This paper uses experimental data to study the effects of participation in intensified placement efforts on subsequent job chances and earnings. Five small-scale experiments were performed in four different regions of Sweden in 2004 and the control groups were offered the PES regular services....

In this paper experimental data from three Swedish demonstration programmes in 2004 are used to study pre-programme effects of active placement efforts. In one of the experiments, targeted towards a broad group of UI receivers, arranged job-search activities in groups combined with increased...

The provision of business training with microfinance leads to a positive impact on assets for the participating households. We correct for membership selection bias and account for potential training endogeneity with propensity score matching, using data from the Self Help Group microfinance...

We evaluate the effect of delivery mechanisms for training provided by facilitators of self help groups (SHGs). Indian SHGs are unique in that they are mainly NGO-formed microfinance groups but later funded by commercial banks. We correct for both membership and training endogeneity. Training...

Microfinance programs like Self Help Group Bank linkage program (SHG), aim to empower women through provision of financial services. We investigate this further to determine whether it is the economic or the non-economic factors that have a greater impact on empowering women. Using household...

We estimate the causal effect of cash grants on household finance and business survival following a natural disaster. Disaster-affected individuals in high damage blocks with access to cash grants have 17% less credit card debt following the disaster than those without access to cash grants....