Digitalisation has a major impact on labour markets in developing countries. While Internet access expands, digital platforms proliferate and "gig-work" is performed in the Global South, access to and use of digital technologies remains far from universal. As the scope and speed of...

Informal, low-quality employment in micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) remains a significant challenge in low- and middle-income countries. We present evidence from an impact evaluation of a light-touch business consulting program with a focus on employment formalization in Côte...

Can rising tides in the labor market lift the poor out of social assistance Although a substantial literature has studied the capacity of safety nets to expand automatically during labor market shocks, less is known about the dynamics of social assistance when labor market conditions improve,...

In November 2019, the Brazilian government introduced, as part of an employment stimulus package, the Contrato Verde Amarelo (CVA), a wage subsidy program for young first-time employees entering in contracts of up to 1.5 minimum wages. Despite CVA did not pass the final senate vote and,...

The purpose of the note is to inform the design of policies and instruments that can enhance labor market outcomes of Brazil's poor and vulnerable populations. Global and regional experiences show that active labor market programs, and more broadly economic inclusion interventions, both at the...

This paper studies the impact of working with same-race coworkers on individuals' retention at firms. Using administrative employer-employee data from Brazil, the paper exploits unexpected deaths of workers from different racial groups as exogenous shocks to peer group composition. The findings...

This paper analyzes complementarities between different Millennium Development Goals, focusing on child mortality and how it is influenced by progress in the other goals, in particular two goals related to the expansion of female education: universal primary education and gender equality in...

This paper reviews the effectiveness and efficiency of key policy instruments for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Based on a simple cross-country regression analysis, the paper argues that average Millennium Development Goal progress is likely to be too slow to meet...

This thesis aims to narrow the research gap on informal enterprises, contributing to both the academic and policy debates. It provides empirical evidence related to two key questions: how much potential do informal firms have to contribute to economic growth, and employment creation? And, if...

This thesis looks at two topics that have been prominent on the development agenda for more than five decades: migration and informal markets. To mitigate the problems of both migration and the informal sector, and harness their development potential, a clear understanding of the mechanisms at...