The net impact of development interventions can depend on the availability of close substitutes to the intervention. We analyze a randomized trial of an innovative anti-poverty program in South India which provides “ultra-poor” households with inputs to create a new, sustainable livelihood....

The net impact of development interventions can depend on the availability of close substitutes to the intervention. We analyze a randomized trial of an innovative anti-poverty program in South India which provides “ultra-poor” households with inputs to create a new, sustainable livelihood....

Answering surveys is usually voluntary, yet much of our knowledge depends on the willingness of households and institutions to answer. We explore the implications of voluntary reporting on knowledge about microfinance. We show systematic biases in microfinance institutions’ choices about which...

Microcredit and small and medium enterprise (SME) finance are often pitched as alternative strategies to create employment opportunities in low‐income communities. So far, though, little is known about how employment patterns compare. We integrate evidence from three surveys in Bangladesh to...