We study a micro-finance program that provides compulsory health insurance to its borrowers and their spouses. We find that the non-borrowing spouses are less likely to file insurance claims than those who are borrowing. Further, a man is more likely to use the health insurance acquired through...

If there were no impediments to the flow of capital across space, then the returns to capital should be equalized. We provide evidence to the contrary. There are large differences in the return to comparable investments across different towns in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India. We explore...

Affirmative action is a subject of intense debate. Supporters point to the increased representation of women and minority groups while critics contend that affirmative action can lead to inefficiencies. In this paper we present results from two field experiments that were designed to test how...

Affirmative action to promote women's employment is a intensely debated policy. Do affirmative action policies attract women and does it come at a cost of deterring high qualified men? In three field experiments in Colombia we compare characteristics of job-seekers who are told of the...

In this paper we show that parking behavior of United Nations diplomats in New York City is strongly and consistently explained by the government effectiveness index of their respective countries. Government effectiveness index measures the quality of civil services, quality and quantity of...

This paper analyzes the impact of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) on households. In particular, we study the impact of the program on food security, savings and health outcomes of households. We follow 1064 households from 198 villages of Medak, Andhra Pradesh, over...

In this paper we analyze women as political candidates in a representative democracy. Using 50 years of assembly elections data at the constituency level from the Indian states, we show that women are more likely to contest elections in those constituencies where gender ratio of the electors is...

This paper finds that the sharing economy is “the peer-to-peer based activity of obtaining, giving, or sharing access to good and services”. Alternative names for this phenomenon include gig economy, platform economy, access economy, and collaborative consumption. The sharing economy is...