The Nordic countries have the lowest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. This has not always been the case. In 1887 the mortality rates in Norway were similar to those of developing countries today. During the next 34 years, Norwegian maternal mortality was halved and infant...

We examine whether exposure of men to women in a traditionally male-dominated environment can change attitudes about mixed-gender productivity, gender roles and gender identity. Our context is the military in Norway, where we randomly assigned female recruits to some squads but not others during...

We identify the effects of employment on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) by collaborating with 27 large companies in Ethiopia to randomly assign jobs to equally qualified female applicants. The job offers increase formal employment, earnings, and earnings shares within couples in the short and...

Ghana is experiencing its third gold rush, and this paper sheds light on the socioeconomic impacts of this rapid expansion in industrial production. The paper uses a rich data set consisting of geocoded household data combined with detailed information on gold mining activities, and conducts two...

The discovery of natural resources across the African continent brings hope for millions of poor people, but there are long-standing fears that the resources will be a curse rather than a blessing. One of the most frequently claimed effects is that gender inequality in economic opportunities may...

We study how close personal contact with minorities affects in-group and out-group trust in a field experiment in the armed forces. Soldiers are randomly assigned to rooms with or without ethnic minorities. At the end of the recruit period, we measure trust by using a trust game. Results...

Using matched administrative election data from Norway, we document gender-specific turnout rates by a range of socio-economic outcomes as well as family relationships and immigrant status. High social rank is consistently associated with higher turnout: we find significant turnout gradients for...

We provide causal evidence of how an increase in wealth affects support for redistribution and beliefs about the causes of poverty. Exploiting the variation in wealth created by an Ethiopian housing lottery, we show that general attitudes toward redistribution and inequality acceptance are...

Partner selection is a vital feature of human behavior with important consequences for individuals, families, and society. Hypergamy occurs when a husband's earning capacity systematically exceeds that of his wife. We provide a theoretical framework that rationalizes hypergamy even in the...

It is a contentious issue whether large scale mining creates local employment, and the sector has been accused of hurting women?s labor supply and economic opportunities. This paper uses the rapid expansion of mining in Sub-Saharan Africa to analyze local structural shifts. It matches 109...