We use a recent first-hand linked employer-employee survey covering the formal sector of Bangladesh to explain gender wage gaps by the inclusion of measures of cognitive attainment and personality traits. Our results show that cognitive skills have greater explanatory power than personality...

This paper investigates the evolution of the gender wage gap in South Africa, using the 1993-2015 Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series data set. The changes in the gap are heterogeneous across the wage distribution. There has been a substantial narrowing of the gap at the bottom of the...

Inequality has been rising in most countries for several decades, with negative consequences for social cohesion and economic growth. Substantial gender wage gaps contribute significantly to overall wage inequality. We look at an often-overlooked driver of gender inequality: international trade....

Aid co-ordination is a constant theme of discussion among national and international aid agencies in their search for more effectiveness and efficiency in delivering development assistance. This paper seeks to clarify some of the arguments currently made in support of aid co-ordination, and to...

The fundamental problem of external validity is not to generalize from one experiment, so much as to experimentally test generalizable theories. That is, theories that explain the systematic variation of causal effects across contexts. Here we show how the graphical language of causal diagrams...

Climate change and violent conflict are defining challenges of our time. However, it is not yet understood how they interact in shaping human welfare and food security, how their interaction shapes gendered outcomes, or how social protection systems can mitigate their impact. To address these...

We find that women sorting into lower wage firms explains nearly half of the gender wage gap in South Africa, using matched employer-employee panel data covering the universe of formal sector workers. Sorting varies considerably over the life cycle: the firm-wage gender gap is negligible for the...

Tanzania has experienced relatively strong and stable economic growth accompanied by social stability over the past two decades. The country is also pursuing an ambitious development plan with significant employment objectives. For development to be fully inclusive, specific attention must be...

Tanzania has expanded its social protection framework significantly over the past decade, but the country continues to grapple with important gender inequalities. This paper examines, first, the evolution and effects of Tanzania's social protection policies since the 2000s, from the perspective...

Previous economic downturns such as the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis disproportionately affected male employment due to greater contractions in industries typically filled by men (e.g., manufacturing). However, after the imposition of the 'hard' COVID-19 lockdown between 2020 quarter 1 and 2...