To explain persistent gender gaps in market outcomes, a lab experimental literature explores whether women and men have innate differences in ability (or attitudes or preferences), and a separate field-based literature studies discrimination against women in market settings. This paper posits...

This paper uses a large national household panel from 1999/2000 and 2007/08 to analyze the short-term effects of India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme on wages, labor supply, agricultural labor use, and productivity. The scheme prompted a 10-point wage increase and...

This article examines the effect of water pricing policies on farmers’ water saving behaviors, using original water user group (WUG) data from a reservoir irrigation system in China. The introduction of volumetric water pricing at the group level, to replace area-based pricing, induces...

The 2007/08 commodity price boom triggered a ‘rush’ for land in developing countries. Yet, many affected countries lacked the regulatory infrastructure to cope with such demand and reliable data on investors’ performance. This study uses the example of Ethiopia to show how simple...

This paper hypothesizes that labor and credit market imperfections—by discouraging off-farm income-generating activities and restricting access to inputs, respectively—affect female farm productivity more deeply than male productivity. The paper develops a theoretical model that decomposes...