The serious implications of privatizing state-owned enterprises for politicians, managers, and investors make such decisions highly contingent on firm characteristics and past performance, complicating the identification of the privatization effects. A unique opportunity for this identification...

Stepping Up Women's STEM Careers in Infrastructure: An Overview of Promising Approaches describes a variety of ways to level the pathway for women entering into and progressing in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) employment within the infrastructure sectors-energy and...

Good teachers are essential for high-quality educational systems. However, little is known about teachers' skills formation during college. By combining two standardized tests for Colombian students, one taken at the end of senior year in high s

This paper examines public sector size and performance management in post-revolution Tunisia, drawing on macro-empirical, legal, and qualitative analyses. The paper first shows that public sector employment figures and the wage bill have increas

Laureate universities offer higher education degrees in the Mexican context, an environment where there is a significant, unmet demand for college degrees and yet, private universities face a highly competitive market to expand their services. This study is an ex-post impact evaluation. Namely,...

The time teachers spend teaching is low in several developing countries. However, improving teacher effort has proven difficult. Why is it so difficult to increase teacher effort? One possibility is that teachers are resistant to increasing effort because they do not believe their effort is...

This paper examines the effects of pecuniary compensation on the ability and motivation of individuals in organizations with non-pecuniary or pro-social missions. In particular, the paper compares flat pay systems, unrelated with ability or effort, to two other systems that are considered...

This study reports results from a randomized evaluation of a mandatory six-month Internet-based sexual education course implemented across public junior high schools in 21 Colombian cities. Six months after finishing the course, the study finds a 0.4 standard deviation improvement in knowledge,...

This paper evaluates an intervention to raise young women's economic empowerment in Sierra Leone, where women frequently experience sexual violence and face multiple economic disadvantages. The intervention provides them with a protective space (a club) where they can find support, receive...