Off-farm work accounts for a substantial and growing share of household income among smallholder farmers in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, but evidence on the effects of these earnings on farm investments remains sparse. We use panel data from a sample of smallholder farmers in Kenya to estimate...

Recent evidence shows that early childhood is a critical period for investments in human capital and that micronutrient deficiency and inadequate stimulation are major causes of impaired child development in poor countries. Transfers to households linked to preschool participation may improve...

Textbook analysis tells us that in a competitive labor market, the introduction of a minimum wage above the competitive equilibrium wage will cause unemployment. This paper makes two contributions to the basic theory of the minimum wage. First, we analyze the effects of a higher minimum wage in...

sector employment, uncovered sector employment, and unemployment. The impact of these labor market adjustments on absolute poverty will depend on how the pattern of employment composition changes within households and on how income is shared within households. An earlier paper (Fields and...

Food processing has been widely recognized as a traditional, unskilled-labor intensive production. Yet rapid development in technology drives food processing into more sophisticated and technology-oriented industry. This paper utilizes a fixed effects model to test the hypothesis that the food...

This paper considers a seeming disconnect between the consensus in policy circles that reducing gender inequalities is to be prioritized in strategies for reducing inequality and poverty, and a view in mainstream economics (and in some policy circles) that gender inequalities are overemphasized....

We study the effects of informal labor sharing arrangements and other social interactions on farmers' productivity in a developing country context, testing whether these types of social and work interactions lead to productivity gains through learning, synergy, or both. Using a rich panel data...

FUNDING SUPPORT: •National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant. No. 70973082 and No.71273179) •Trans Century Training Programme Foundation for the Talents of Humanities and Social Science by the State Education Commission（NECT-12-1014）

Despite historically high rates of economic growth in South Asia over the last two decades, the extent of informality remains large and widespread. This paper asks why that is, why informality needs to be addressed, and how it can be addressed. The central thrust of this paper is to emphasize...