News

In Sub-Saharan Africa, wage job opportunities are limited, and a vast majority of young people are engaged in low-productive work. Many governments support formal apprenticeship programs to help youth find suitable employment, but there is limited evidence on the direct and indirect effects of these...

Rural to urban migration is an integral component of economic development, but there is limited evidence on the decision to migrate and little evidence on how emigration affects rural labor markets. To better understand these, researchers varied the proportion of travel grants offered to landless...

Researchers evaluated the impacts of increased exposure to financial markets on participants’ financial literacy and investment behavior in Israel, and found it reduced the gender gap in financial literacy and confidence. They found that engaging in financial markets increased participants'...

Low-income populations throughout the world often consume very few calories. At the time of this intervention in 2013, over 800 million people globally consumed fewer calories than were recommended to maintain a healthy weight. However, the impact of low caloric intake on economic productivity is...

In Colombia, researchers are evaluating the economic impact of providing stimulus loans to SMEs, distributed via the government’s COVID-19 relief program (“Unidos por Colombia”), on SME survival, profits, and employment.

Working closely with a highly profitable consumer lender in South Africa, researchers sought to determine the effects of advertising content, price, and offer deadlines on loan take up. They found the marketing had significant effects on loan take up, but not on loan amount or default rates. Clients...

Researchers tested the assumption of price inelastic demand using a randomized evaluation in South Africa. The results suggest that the demand curves were downward sloping, and steeper for price increases relative to the lender’s standard rates. Researchers also found that loan size was far more...

In Mexico, researchers are testing whether this lagging productivity could be due to lower managerial capacity. They found that providing subsidized managerial consulting to Mexican SMEs boosted their productivity and hiring.