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 tests the role of search and matching frictions by providing...

In light of the recent microfinance crisis in South India, government-run institutions in general, and primary agricultural credit cooperatives in particular, may end up playing a larger role in the provision of financial services for the poor. Using survey data collected in 2007 from three...

The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and its economic and social effects on households have created an urgent need for timely data to help monitor and mitigate the social and economic impacts of the crisis and protect the welfare of Nigerian society. To monitor how the COVID-19 pandemic is...

Employers around the world complain that youth lack the soft skills needed for success in the workplace. In response, a number of employment programs have begun to incorporate soft skills training, but to date there has been little evidence as to the effectiveness of such programs. This paper...

Understanding the economic and social effects of the recent global trends of rising market concentration and market power has become a policy priority. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper introduces a simple simulation method, the Welfare and Competition tool (WELCOM), to estimate with...

Obtaining representative information on hosts and displaced populations in a single survey is not straightforward. This paper demonstrates the value of combining traditional and nontraditional sampling frames, geospatial information, and listing exercises to design a representative survey of...

Issues of data availability and incomparability in the measurement of household consumption arise frequently when measuring poverty trends over time. Yet, understanding these trends is key to guide national and international policy makers in their poverty reduction efforts. This paper aims to...

Issues of data availability and incomparability in the measurement of household consumption arise frequently when measuring poverty trends over time. Yet, understanding these trends is key to guide national and international policy makers in their poverty reduction efforts. This paper aims to...

Fragility and conflict pose a critical threat to the global goal of ending extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2015, successful development strategies reduced the proportion of the world’s people living in extreme poverty from 36 to 10 percent. But in many fragile and conflict-affected...

"Extreme poverty is in retreat today across much of the world, but Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations (FCS) are a stark exception. Not only is extreme poverty rising in economies characterized by conflict and fragility, but poor people in FCS are more likely than the poor elsewhere to...