European official development assistance to Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries increased sharply after 2011, ostensibly in support of the social, economic, and above all political changes demanded by the Arab uprisings. The subsequent turn to development policies driven by...

In the Global South economic mobility across generations or intergenerational economic mobility is in and of itself an important topic for research with consequences for policy. This 'Element' surveys the area, conceptually and empirically.

Using a range of countries from the Global South, this book examines heterogeneity within informal work by applying a common conceptual framework and empirical methodology. The country studies use panel data to study the dynamics of worker transitions between formal and heterogeneous, informal...

Despite the Ethiopian government's commitment to attracting foreign direct investment to its emerging manufacturing sector and its shared interests with Chinese private businesses in building profitable investments, relations between Chinese private businesses and the Ethiopian government are...

This paper examines the evolution of China's industrial and occupational structure in the last two decades and its impact on wage inequality. We find that non-routine cognitive and interpersonal tasks have increased, while routine cognitive tasks first increased and then declined. Occupation...

Despite a sizeable literature on the labour market effects of maternity leave regulations on women in developed countries, how these policies affect women's work in developing countries with a large informal sector remains poorly understood. This study examines how extending the maternity leave...

Climate change is expected to increase the risk in agricultural production due to increasing temperatures and rainfall variability. Smallholders can adjust by diversifying income sources, including through migration. Most existing studies investigate whether households send a migrant after...

This paper argues that new computer, smartphone, and universal ID technologies are reducing the incentives for political clientelism in the delivery of social programmes in India, especially by allowing party leaders to bypass local brokers to credit-claim for better service delivery and...

The impact of childbirth on women's employment has been discussed extensively in the context of developed countries. Constraints on mothers' labour market participation and consequent fall in earnings are characterised as the 'motherhood penalty'. This phenomenon is relatively less explored in...

This study seeks to determine the effect on the gender employment gap and women's employment of the extension of maternity leave from four months to six months in Viet Nam's 2012 Labor Code. To identify this effect, labour market outcomes of groups of women and men are compared. We use the...