This monograph probes the role of information in service delivery by focusing on key sectors in Kenya and Ethiopia. Findings from comparative studies done in 2005-06 in the health, education, and water and sanitation sectors plus public and private partnerships (PPPs) illustrate the significance...

Hunger during pre-harvest lean seasons is widespread in the agrarian areas of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. We randomly assign an $8.50 incentive to households in rural Bangladesh to out- migrate during the lean season. The incentive induces 22% of households to send a seasonal migrant, their...

Economic preferences – like time, risk and social preferences – have been shown to be very influential for real-life outcomes, such as educational achievements, labor market outcomes, or health status. We contribute to the recent literature that has examined how and when economic preferences...

Economic preferences – like time, risk and social preferences – have been shown to be very influential for real-life outcomes, such as educational achievements, labor market outcomes, or health status. We contribute to the recent literature that has examined how and when economic preferences...

We design and implement a correspondence study where we sent fictitious résumés with Chinese names and White names in response to both high-skilled and low-skilled job advertisements. Consistent with similar research elsewhere, we find that there is a large gap in getting interview offers when...

We examine how mehr, a conditional payment from husbands to wives in the event of divorce, and dowry, a transfer from bride families to grooms at the time of marriage, have evolved through natural shocks. We develop a model of marriage market in which dowry acts as a groom price, whereas mehr...

Rural to urban migration is an integral part of the development process, but there is little evidence on how out-migration transforms rural labor markets. Emigration could benefit landless village residents by reducing labor competition, or conversely, reduce productivity if skilled workers...

Do constraints to technology adoption vary by behavioral traits? We randomize 150 villages in Bangladesh into being offered standard microcredit, loans with a grace period, the choice between those two contracts, and control. No discernible average effects are detected on the adoption of...

This paper investigates the effect of drinking arsenic contaminated water on mental health. Drinking water with an unsafe arsenic level for a prolonged period can lead to arsenicosis, which includes symptoms such as black spots on the skin and subsequent illnesses such as various cancers. We...