This study develops a measure of firm-level credit constraints by leveraging refinements in survey instruments for a widely used database. Using data on more than 65,000 firms across 109 economies, the study uncovers several insights. Around 30 percent of firms in the formal private sector are...

This paper analyzes extreme child poverty ($2.15/day poverty line) trends, as well as child poverty based on the higher international poverty lines of $3.65 and $6.85. The paper provides a trajectory of extreme child poverty (children living in extremely poor households) from 2013 to 2019 (based...

Growing evidence on the links between poverty and psychology has prompted increased interest in the psychosocial impacts of economic interventions and the economic impacts of psychologically motivated interventions. In practice, psychologically motivated programs typically comprise one of many...

Countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia are in their third decade of independence. What impact does this have on the skills premium and does accession to the European Union have an impact on the returns to education. The returns to education in 28 transition and 20 non-transition...

Economists have long been interested in measuring the poverty and distributional impacts of macroeconomic projections and shocks. In this sense, microsimulation models have been widely used to estimate the distributional effects since they allow accounting for several transmission channels...

Using detailed monthly firm-level trade data from Indonesia from February 2019 to June 2021, this paper shows that firm-level exports were overall more resilient than imports during Covid-19. Firms that participated in global value chains were more resilient to the Covid-19 shock beyond the...

As climate change intensifies, dry rainfall shocks and droughts are a growing concern. At the same time, scientific evidence suggests that the world has surpassed the safe planetary boundary for green water, which is water stored in biomass and soil that is crucial for maintaining climate...

Based on global datasets, 4.5 billion people were exposed to extreme weather events (flood, drought, cyclone, or heatwave) in 2019, an increase from 4 billion in 2010. Among exposed people in 2019, 2.3 billion people lived with less than $6.85 per day and about 400 million lived in extreme...

This paper examines the link between violent attacks of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, forced migration, and the empowerment of women in host communities. The paper finds positive effects of distant attacks on the economic well-being of women, their use of modern contraceptive methods,...

This paper studies the early career dynamics of employment and formality using data from the Arab Republic of Egypt. With 14 rounds of Egypt's labor force surveys several measures of informality and underemployment are constructed to examine how the labor market conditions faced by young men...