This article studies the extent to which participation in productive associations in Nicaragua contributes to increase individuals'access to social programs and credit services. By participating in productive associations, individuals give a good signal to firms and are rewarded with better...

This note assesses the main micro?determinants of informal employment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region from a human development stand point. It's main purpose is to quantify the patterns of labor informality (defined as the share of all employment with no access to social...

This note provides a general background of the main features of labor regulation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and benchmarks them against international best practices. The note compiles information on available labor laws and other legal acts concerning employment protection...

This paper relies on simple framework to understand the gender wage gap in Macedonia and then simulates how the gender wage gap would behave after the introduction of a minimum wage. First, it presents a new albeit simple decomposition of the wage gap into three factors: (i) a wage level factor,...

This note presents and analyzes the main design features of an inventory of non-publicly provided Active Labor Market Programs (ALMPs) in Arab-Mediterranean Countries (AMCs), with a specific focus on programs targeted at youth. Despite considerable international evidence, there is little...

The differences in financial development across Indian states, while seeming substantial, have a minor effect on firm lifecycle and growth. These results hold controlling for differences in labor regulations across states, capital intensity, and for firms born before and after the major reforms....

Unemployment rates for tertiary-educated youth in Jordan are high, as is the duration of unemployment. Two randomized experiments in Jordan were used to test different theories that may explain this phenomenon. The first experiment tested the role of search and matching frictions by providing...

This paper analyzes the dynamic nature of rainfall insurance purchasing decisions, specifically looking at whether and why receiving an insurance payout induces a greater chance of purchasing insurance again the next year. This analysis uses customer data from the Indian micro-finance...

Trade liberalizations have been shown to improve domestic firms'performance through the new varieties of imported intermediate inputs. This paper uses a unique, representative sample of Bangladeshi garment firms to highlight that local intermediate inputs may also enhance domestic...

This paper develops a dynamic model that explains the pattern of population and production allocation in an economy with an urban location and a rural one. Agglomeration economies make urban dwellers benefit from a larger population living in the city and urban firms become more productive when...