The idea that local social capital yields economic benefits is fundamental to theories of agglomeration, and central to claims about the virtues of cities. However, this claim has not been evaluated using methods that permit more confident statements about causality. This paper examines what...

We examine how participation in a microfinance program diffuses through social networks. We collected detailed demographic and social network data in 43 villages in South India before microfinance was introduced in those villages and then tracked eventual participation. We exploit exogenous...

Empirical evidence suggests that networks of personal relations are very important in the micro dynamics of labor markets: irrespectively of the country and the occupation considered a high share of jobs are filled by social referrals. In this paper we add theoretical speculation and empirical...

Informal contacts are extensively used by both firms and workers to find jobs and fill vacancies. The common wisdom in the economic literature is that jobs created through this channel are of better quality and pay higher wages than jobs created through formal methods. This paper explores the...

Social networks are an important channel of information transmission in the labor market. This paper studies the mechanisms by which social networks have an impact on labor market outcomes of displaced workers. We base our analysis on administrative records for the universe of private sector...

Social networks are an important channel of information transmission in the labor market. This paper studies the mechanisms by which social networks have an impact on labor market outcomes of displaced workers. We base our analysis on administrative records for the universe of private sector...

Social networks are an important channel of information transmission in the labor market. This paper studies the mechanisms by which social networks have an impact on labor market outcomes of displaced workers. We base our analysis on administrative records for the universe of private sector...

Informal contacts are extensively used by both firms and workers to find jobs and fill vacancies. Thecommon wisdom in the economic literature is that jobs created through this channel are of better qualityand pay higher wages than jobs created through formal methods. This paper explores the...

The 'ratchet effect' refers to a situation where a principal uses private information that is revealed by an agent's early actions to the agent's later disadvantage, in a context where binding multi-period contracts are not enforceable. In a simple, context-rich environment, we experimentally...

Research in sociology and economics point to important role for social networks in labor markets. Social contacts mediate propagation of rich and reliable information among indi- viduals and thus help workers find jobs and employers find employees. Recent theoretical advances show that for...