We study whether providing affordable childcare improves women's economic empowerment and child development, using data from a sample of 1,990 women participating in a public works program in Burkina Faso. Out of 36 urban work sites, 18 were randomly selected to receive community-based childcare cen...

The large divergence in the returns of top-performing star firms and the rest of the economy is substantially reduced when we account for the mismeasurement of intangible capital. Star firms produce and invest more per dollar of invested capital, have more valuable innovations as measured by the mar...

Institutionalized conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs may affect important aspects of pre-existing, informal safety nets such as inter-household transfers and trust among community members. We use a randomized controlled trial to test the impact of CCTs on various measures of trust and informal...

We construct a novel database covering more than 450 fiscal consolidation episodes in 185 countries during the period 1979-2019. Using discrete choice models, we then examine the (broader macroeconomic and political) factors motivating these fiscal consolidation episodes.

There is considerable interest in increasing private participation in infrastructure to meet the twin goals of climate mitigation and development in low- and middle-income countries. At the same time, this infrastructure needs to make returns in order to be financially sustainable.

To contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools in Kenya, as in many other countries, had to temporarily close. This study investigates the extent to which lockdowns and school closures affected households and low-cost private schools (LCPS) in four urban informal settlements in Nairobi. Qua...

Can governments contract out school management at scale? In 2016 the Government of Punjab transferred management of over 4,000 failing primary schools to private operators. Schools remained free to students. Private operators received a government subsidy per enrolled student of less than half per-s...