This paper analyzes a rich pre-pandemic data set on both men and women business owners from 401 mainly rural villages in five regencies (kabupaten) of East Java province, Indonesia. There are some similarities but mostly large gender differences in characteristics and resources in this random sample...
In 2020, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) joined efforts by other multilateral development banks to rapidly scale up support to developing countries to address COVID-19. Beyond headline numbers, there has been less focus on how ADB’s support was distributed by country income group, sector, modality ...
Vietnam’s development since the early 1990s has given new life to the East Asian export-led growth model. For late starting economies, Vietnam’s experience provides valuable lessons not only on the policy initiatives that can deliver positive results, but also on the inevitable and the potentia...
Despite the concerted efforts of the Indonesian government to increase financial inclusion and the e-commerce–led growth of digital payment services, a large proportion of the country’s population remains financially excluded. Much of the growth and innovation has mainly benefited those already fina...
Over the last decade, Pakistan has seen improvements in the coverage of its networks of bank branches, ATMs, and mobile money agents. However, the country is lagging behind comparator countries when it comes to the financial inclusion of its population; according to the latest estimates, barely 20 p...
COVID-19 has caused significant morbidity and mortality, both directly and indirectly via the disruption to routine health services. Evidence on the indirect health impacts has largely been anecdotal or modeled, and cause/program-specific. We aimed to document the indirect health impacts in four cou...
This paper makes the case that some interventions designed to improve women’s economic lives need to be tracked long enough for women to manifest new and beneficial behaviors. The study analyzes the time paths of the estimated impacts in a randomized trial providing financial incentives to bank agen...