This paper studies how a positive export shock - the sharp increase in garment-sector exports that began at the end of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) - spread through Bangladesh's labor markets. Although the end of the MFA was arguably exogenous to Bangladesh, the authors instrument export...

This paper examines the public sector wage premium using nationally representative household surveys from 91 countries. The public sector generally pays a wage premium compared to all private sector salaried employees, but the size of the premium is sensitive to the choice of the private sector...

Large firms pay higher wages. In developing economies, the large-firm wage premium is comparable to the average gap between male and female wages, or two-thirds of the gap between urban and rural wages. There is substantial variation across countries in the share of the premium that is explained...

Women's property ownership matters for their well-being and agency; it can also advance economic prosperity and promote the human development of future generations. Yet, until recently, lack of data has constrained researchers from gaining a comprehensive overview of gender differences in...

Most research on the economic payoffs of skills has used individuals' level of schooling attained-typically years or level of education or training received-as a key proxy for skills. Such research has consistently found that individual returns to schooling are positive and that returns tend to...

Using firm-level data for Georgia, the paper estimates the quasi-elasticity of employment and wages with respect to the share of exports in total sales, to explore whether changes in the structure of sales (exporting versus selling to the domestic market) matter for labor market outcomes. The...

Several studies have documented a positive and causal relationship product or process innovation - and labor productivity. Given the links between labor productivity and wages, a likely implication of this positive relationship is that innovation is associated with higher wages of more...

Wage inequality has declined in Mexico since 2000. Using data from Mexican labor surveys for the period between 2000 and 2014, this paper investigates whether the decline was driven by wages declining more sharply for younger or older workers. The analysis finds that the wages of older workers...

Strong economic growth continued in 2014-15, but the drought slowed down Ethiopia's growth to 8 percent in 2015-16. Exports have had their worst performance in the last decade and the current account balance remained large. Inflation is remarkable stable given the recent drought and even...