This paper uses nationally representative panel data and a combination of econometric approaches, to explore linkages between rural non-farm activities (wage and self-employment) and household welfare in rural Malawi. The paper analyzes the average treatment effects and distributional effects on...

This paper provides evidence on the impacts of agricultural productivity on employment growth and structural transformation of non-farm activities. To guide the empirical work, this paper develops a general equilibrium model that emphasizes distinctions among non-farm activities in terms of...

This paper uses a large national household panel from 1999/2000 and 2007/08 to analyze the short-term effects of India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme on wages, labor supply, agricultural labor use, and productivity. The scheme prompted a 10-point wage increase and...

The aim of this paper is to provide feedback on the question of socioeconomic benefits from rural road development and the impact of transport infrastructure on the poor, particularly the poorest and the bottom 20 percent of the population. This paper relies on impact evaluation methodologies,...

This paper uses household panel data from rural Indonesia to examine the impact of road quality on labor supply and wages. First, road projects are found to increase transportation speed. Second, the empirical results from intra-village variations of household endowments and labor market...

This paper uses a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Triple difference estimates suggest that participants significantly increase...

Although a high rate of urbanization and a high incidence of rural poverty are two distinct features of many developing countries, there is little knowledge of the effects of the former on the latter. Using a large sample of Indian districts from the 1983-1999 period, the authors find that...

Prevailing practices in evaluating workfare programs have ignored the disutility of the type of work done, with theoretically ambiguous implications for the impacts on poverty. In the case of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, past assessments have relied solely on household...

Despite their increasing prominence in policy debates, little is known about gender inequities in non-agricultural labor market outcomes in rural areas. Using matched household-enterprise-community data sets from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, this paper documents and analyzes...

In 2005 India introduced an ambitious national anti-poverty program, now called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The program offers up to 100 days of unskilled manual labor per year on public works projects for any rural household member who wants such work at the...