Fostering entrepreneurship is widely perceived to be a critical policy agenda to expand employment and earning opportunities and to reduce poverty. Sound macroeconomic conditions and business environment including infrastructure, regulation, and legal environment have typically been emphasized...

This paper provides a review on the effectiveness of various entrepreneurship programs in developing countries. We adopt a meta regression analysis using 37 impact evaluation studies that were in the public domain by March 2012, and draw out several lessons on the design of the programs. We...

This paper provides a synthetic and systematic review on the effectiveness of various entrepreneurship programs in developing countries. It adopts a meta-regression analysis using 37 impact evaluation studies that were in the public domain by March 2012, and draws out several lessons on the...

This multisectoral Jobs Diagnostic provides a comprehensive overview of Pakistan's job market, with the aim of informing key policy areas. It investigates a host of factors associated with labor outcomes, such as the general macroeconomic environment and job-specific conditions, workers'...

This paper examines how different types of workers in 17 middle-income countries were affected by labor market retrenchment during the great recession. Impacts on different types of workers varied by country and were only weakly related to the severity of the shock. Among active workers, youth...

The informal sector is generally believed to be more vulnerable to various risks due to limited access to social insurance, but little empirical evidence exists to support this statement. This paper examines the relationship between informality and protection from health risks in Yemen. The...

This paper provides experimental evidence on the effects of vocational and entrepreneurial training for Malawian youth, in an environment where access to schooling and formal sector employment is extremely low. It tracks a large fraction of program drop-outs -- a common phenomenon in the...

After the tragic factory collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013, the direct reforms and indirect responses of retailers have both plausibly affected workers in the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh. These reforms include a minimum wage increase, high profile but voluntary audits, and an increased...

Evidence on the effectiveness of workfare as an anti-poverty program in developing countries is weak compared with the relatively well-established role of public works during economic crisis as a social safety net. This paper contributes to evidence building by examining the impact of a...

This paper attempts to assess the vulnerability of Armenian temporary international labor migrants and their families to the labor market challenges posed by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The authors estimate that about fifty percent of temporary labor migrants might have been unable to...