Mobile phone coverage has expanded considerably throughout the developing world, particularly within sub-Saharan Africa. Existing evidence suggests that increased access to information technology has improved agricultural market efficiency for consumer markets and certain commodities, but there...

Despite recent calls in support of cash transfers, there is little rigorous evidence of the relative impacts of cash versus in-kind transfers, especially in humanitarian contexts, where a majority of such programs take place. This paper uses data from a randomized experiment in the Democratic...

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have spread rapidly over the past decade. There has been considerable interest in the effect of such technology on search costs, search behavior and welfare outcomes, particularly in developing countries. This paper investigates the impact of a...

How do markets respond to extreme rainfall in West Africa? This paper examines the effect of weather on grain market performance in Niger, a country increasingly affected by drought and severe food crises over the past two decades. Using a dataset that combines information on rainfall,...

Conditional and unconditional cash transfers often help improve development outcomes, yet their costs to program recipients and implementing agencies are rarely discussed. Mobile money transfer systems in many developing countries now offer more cost-effective implementation of cash transfer...