Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world's population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of-or in spite of-globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on...

Early fertility is a key barrier to female human capital attainment in sub-Saharan Africa, yet contraceptive take-up remains puzzlingly low, even among educated populations with healthcare access. We study a barrier to hormonal contraceptive uptake that has not been causally tested: the...

The global food system is an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change. Animal agriculture is responsible for a large share of the food-system emissions, both directly and through the production of animal feed. Limiting global warming to the goals set forth by...

Manufacturing generates very little employment in the developing world. Urban jobs are predominantly informal, unproductive, and in services. It seems unlikely that manufacturing will be able to absorb the new increments to the labor force or create more productive jobs for those that are...

We analyze a fundamental dilemma and time-inconsistency problem facing a climate coalition producing natural gas. In the short term, it is tempting to export more to outcompete coal. When this policy is anticipated, however, investments in renewables fall and emissions ultimately increase. When...

We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leveraging an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals were randomized into receiving $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, with a control group of 2,000 participants receiving $50/month. We gather...

This chapter, prepared for the Handbook of Labor Economics, presents a comprehensive overview of how labor economists understand job search among the unemployed and how job search is shaped by unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market policies (ALMP). It focuses on synthesizing key...

Armed groups routinely delegate domains of rule to village customary chiefs--indirect rule. The larger a chief's power over the villagers relative to the group's, the more there is indirect rule. Over time, enabled by the chief's efforts to legitimize the group, the group expands the taxes they...

We study habit formation in annual biometric health screenings using a field experiment that randomly assigned financial incentives to 4,799 employees over three years. Completing the first screening raised subsequent screenings by 32.4-36.0 percentage points (84%-90%) annually. Habit formation...