We examine the impact of criminalizing sex work, exploiting an event in which local officials unexpectedly criminalized sex work in one district in East Java, Indonesia, but not in neighboring districts. We collect data from female sex workers and their clients before and after the change. We...

We study whether natural disasters affect risk-taking behavior exploiting geographic variation in exposure to natural disasters. We conduct standard risk games (using real money) with randomly selected individuals in Indonesia and find that individuals who recently suffered a flood or earthquake...

Cash transfer programs can provide important financial support for poor households in developing countries and are becoming increasingly common. However the potential for mistargeting of program funds is high. This paper focuses on the social consequences arising from misallocation of resources...

We estimate the effect of early child development on maternal labor force participation using data from teacher assessments. Mothers might react to having a poorly developing child by dropping out of the formal labor force in order to spend more time with their child, or they could potentially...

Lack of sanitation and poor hygiene behavior cause a tremendous disease burden among the poor. This paper evaluates the impact of the Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing project in Indonesia, where about 11 percent of children have diarrhea in any two-week period and more than 33,000...

Indian agricultural communities are facing a crisis driven by, among other things, skewed terms of trade and farmers’ inability to deal with increasingly adverse climatic conditions. Because agriculture continues to be the primary source of livelihood for most of India’s population,...

The overall purpose of the Impact Evaluation is to provide decision makers with a body of rigorous evidence on the effects of the hand washing and sanitation projects at scale on a set of relevant outcomes. It also aims to generate robust evidence on a cross-country basis, understanding how...

Do parents invest more or less in their high ability children? We provide new evidence on this question by comparing observed ability differences and observed investment differences between siblings in the NLSY. To overcome endogeneity issues we use sibling differences in handedness as an...

We estimate the earnings premium for beauty in an occupation where returns to physical attractiveness are likely to be important: commercial sex work. In the commercial sex market, perhaps more so than any other sector in the labor market, the beauty premium should be at the extreme due to the...

We study whether natural disasters affect risk-taking behavior exploiting geographic variation in exposure to natural disasters. We conduct standard risk games (using real money) with randomly selected individuals in Indonesia and find that individuals who recently suffered a flood or earthquake...