What explains why grants to women-owned microenterprises often fail to yield improvements in business outcomes, especially as compared to grants to men’s microenterprises? This is the topic tackled in the new working paper “Mitigating the Impact of Household Expropriation on Female Entrepreneurship: Experimental Evidence from Ghana,” by Francisco Campos, Adriana Conconi, Elwyn Davies, Marine Gassier, […]
Violence against women intensified under COVID-19 lockdowns. The most rigorous literature evaluating the impact of stay-at-home measures, job loss, and social isolation on various forms of violence against women, including femicide highlights two effective policy responses: specialised support services and emergency cash transfers. Drawing on recent findings from Brazil and broader international evidence, this column […]
“How’s your garden?” This was a common question I often heard in Gulu, Uganda. Especially at the start of the country’s two rainy seasons—one beginning in March and the other in September—women frequently exchanged this phrase in markets, hair salons, and even non-profit offices. In Gulu, a garden was not merely an aesthetic feature of […]
Who has more authority in the eyes of the public – male or female economists? This column uses an information experiment to show that the opinions of visibly senior female economists (professors in top economics departments) carry more weight. A plausible explanation is that credentials (signals of success) may reduce or reverse stereotyped discrimination: women […]
