Can cash transfers promote employment and reduce poverty in rural Africa? Will lower youth unemployment and poverty reduce the risk of social instability? The authors experimentally evaluate one of Uganda's largest development programs, which provided thousands of young people nearly...

The presence of a westward‐moving frontier of settlement shaped early U.S. history. In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner famously argued that the American frontier fostered individualism. We investigate the “frontier thesis” and identify its long‐run implications for culture...

Job seekers often face substantial information frictions related to potential job quality. This is especially true in international labor markets, where intermediaries match prospective migrants with employers abroad. We conducted a randomized trial in Indonesia to explore how information about...

This paper explores the labor market returns to working on a victorious political campaign. Using unique administrative data from Brazil, we track the earnings and employment of campaign workers before and after close elections spanning nearly 20 years. We identify sizable returns to working for...

We explore how financial constraints distort the entry decisions among otherwise productive entrepreneurs and limit growth of promising young firms. A model of liquidity-constrained entrepreneurs suggests that the easing of credit constraints can induce more entry of firms with greater long-run...

Job seekers face substantial information frictions, especially in international labor markets where intermediaries match prospective migrants with overseas employers. We conducted a randomized trial in Indonesia to explore how information about intermediary quality shapes migration outcomes....