This paper documents how the structure of extended family networks in rural Mexico relates to the poverty and inequality of the village of residence. Using the Hispanic naming convention, we construct within-village extended family networks in 504 poor rural villages. Family networks are larger...

We provide descriptive evidence on the characteristics of a household's extended family network using data from the Progresa social assistance program in rural Mexico. We exploit information on the paternal and maternal surnames of household heads and their spouses and the patronymic naming...

We present evidence on whether and how a household's behavior is influenced by the presence and characteristics of its extended family. Using data from the PROGRESA program in Mexico, we exploit information on the paternal and maternal surnames of heads and spouses in conjunction with the...

Over the last decade, many countries have experienced dramatic increases in university enrolment, which, when not matched by compensating increases in other inputs, have resulted in larger class sizes. Using administrative records from a leading UK university, we present evidence on the effects...

Whether basic entrepreneurship can be inculcated amongst the poorest in society and serve as a route out of poverty remains an open question. We provide evidence on this issue by looking at the effects of a large-scale asset transfer and training programme which is targeted at the poorest women...

The world's poorest people lack capital and skills and toil for others in occupations that others shun. Using a large-scale and long-term randomized control trial in Bangladesh this paper demonstrates that sizable transfers of assets and skills enable the poorest women to shift out of...

Social interactions determine many economic behaviors, but information on social ties does not exist in most publicly available and widely used datasets. We present results on the identification of social networks from observational panel data that contains no information on social ties between...

We present evidence from a six-year field experiment with young job seekers in urban labor markets in Uganda. We study how standard labor market interventions impact their search behavior, long run labor market outcomes, and how these long run outcomes are mediated through search behavior. The...