Publications and Forthcoming Articles
The Impact of Firm Downsizing on Workers: Evidence from Ethiopia’s Ready-Made Garment Industry (with Morgan Hardy, Eyoual Demeke, Marc Witte and Christian Johannes Meyer). Forthcoming at World Development
[ Abstract | Recent Draft ]
We analyze matched employee-employer data from Ethiopia’s largest special economic zone during a period of downsizing pressure from the COVID-19 world import demand shock. We observe substantial job displacement during the shock peak, particularly for new hires. These largely female and rural- to-urban migrants persistently “fall off the employment ladder,” remaining unemployed both within and outside the zone even after employers have recov- ered from the shock. We observe high levels of urban-centered food insecurity and depression symptoms during the crisis peak, regardless of employment status. Our findings highlight the importance of social protection policies within export-oriented development strategies.
Gender Differences in Informal Labor Market Resilience (with Morgan Hardy, Erin Litzow and Jamie McCasland). World Bank Economic Review 2023; 37(1), 112-126.
[ Abstract | Recent Draft ]
This paper reports on the universe of garment-making firm owners in a Ghanaian district capital during the COVID-19 crisis. By July 2020, 80% of both male- and female-owned firms were operational. Using pre-pandemic data, we document that selection into persistent closure differs by gender. Consistent with a "cleansing effect" of recessions and highlighting the presence of marginal female entrepreneurs, female-owned firms that remain closed past the spring lockdown are negatively selected on pre-pandemic sales. The pre-pandemic sales distributions of female survivors and non-survivors are significantly different from each other. Female owners of non-operational firms exit to non-employment and experience large decreases in overall earnings. Persistently-closed male-owned firms are not selected on pre-pandemic firm characteristics. Instead, their owners are 36 percentage points more likely to have another income generating activity prior to the crisis and fully compensate for revenue losses in their core businesses with these alternative income generating activities.
Gotta’ Have Money to Make Money? Bargaining Behavior and Financial Need of Microentrepreneurs (with Morgan Hardy and Lena Song) American Economic Review: Insights. January 2022; 4.1: 1 – 17
[ Abstract | Paper | VoxDev]
Bargaining over real prices with microenterprise owners in Ghana, we show that sellers with less per capita household liquidity agree to lower sale prices. This relationship is robust across firms and within firms over time, even after controlling for a plethora of time-varying observables. A computerized bargaining experiment, with randomized initial payout sizes, corroborates the real-bargaining findings. This pattern can be explained by an application of classical bargaining theory that includes endowments and utility functions with decreasing absolute risk aversion. The potential poverty-multiplying implications of pricing behavior is a key frontier in understanding barriers to the profitability of microenterprises.
Thirty-five years later: Long-term effects of the Matlab Maternal and Child Health/Family Planning Program on older women’s well-being (with Tania Barham, Andrew Foster, Chris Jochem, Jane Menken, Abdur Razzaque, Elisabeth Root, and Patrick Turner) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021; 118, no. 28
[ Abstract | Paper]
Few studies have addressed links between family planning programs and long-term benefits for women’s health and economic outcomes, especially in societies where old-age support and women’s status are tied to childbearing and where smaller families may carry negative consequences for women. We analyzed the maternal and child health/family planning (MCH/FP) program, a highly effective intervention introduced in the rural Matlab subdistrict of Bangladesh in 1977 with a subsequent 12-y differential in service access. We found significant differences in lifetime contraceptive behavior and completed fertility among women born 1938−1973. We found few effects on later health or economic outcomes except for an association of MCH/FP with poorer overall health and poorer metabolic health among women born 1950−1961.
The market-reach of pandemics: Evidence from female workers in Ethiopia’s ready-made garment industry (with with Christian Johannes Meyer, Morgan Hardy, Marc Witte, and Eyoual Demeke). World Development. January 2021;137:105179.
[ Abstract | Paper | CEGA Blog | The Optimist Newsletter]
In a globalized world, pandemics transmit impacts through markets. We document employment changes, coping strategies, and welfare of garment factory workers in Ethiopia’s largest industrial park during the early stages of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic. We field a phone survey of female workers during a two month period in which cases are rapidly rising globally, but not locally. Our data suggest significant changes in employment, high levels of migration away from urban areas to rural areas if women are no longer working, and high levels of food insecurity. These findings compel a research and policy focus on documenting and mitigating the market-reach of pandemics on low-income workers at the margins.
It’s Getting Crowded in Here: Experimental Evidence of Demand Constraints in the Gender Profit Gap (with Morgan Hardy) The Economic Journal. October 2020; 130(631):2272-90.
[ Abstract | Paper | VoxDev]
This article considers market-level contributors to the well-documented gender profit gap among micro-entrepreneurs. We combine data from a garment-making firm census and market research survey in Ghana, uncovering a gender gap in the market-size-to-firm ratio and observing disproportionate self-reports of ‘not enough customers’ from female owners. We develop a simple model and discuss implications of potential gender differences in demand constraints. As experimental corroboration, we show that female-owned firms expand production and experience profit increases in response to random demand shocks, while male-owned firms do not. Nationally representative data echoes our experimental findings, showing more crowding in female-dominated industries.
Mind The (Profit) Gap: Why Are Female Enterprise Owners Earning Less than Men? (with Morgan Hardy) AEA Papers and Proceedings May 2018, Vol. 108, pp. 252-55.
[ Abstract | Paper ]
We explore potential causes for the well-documented profit gap between male- and female-owned microenterprises in low-income countries. We use rich data from an ongoing field project in Ghana's garment making sector, and our study sample consists of all garment making firms in a midsize district capital. Even within the same industry, male-owned firms earn nearly twice as much profit as female-owned firms. Furthermore, we find the large and persistent gender difference in profits cannot be explained by our extensive firm- and owner-level characteristics. We conclude that factors outside of individual firm or firm-owner characteristics are likely to be at play.
Working Papers
The Enterprise Gender Data Gap: Evidence From Sub-Saharan Africa (with Morgan Hardy and Nusrat Jimi).
[ Abstract | Recent Draft ]
Using data from 43 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, we document large variations in women- owned enterprise representation and estimates of gender gaps in enterprise performance between commonly available data sources. We provide empirical evidence that these differences are driven by variations in gender-blind sampling protocols. Women-owned enterprises are less likely to meet the sampling criteria for most widely available enterprise data and those that do are more positively selected on performance, relative to male-owned enterprises. We document differences in implied policy and research priorities; sources with higher women- owned enterprise representation point toward issues of market access, over more commonly studied barriers.
Improving the Early Childhood Environment: Multi-Generational Effects on Human Capital (with Tania Barham, Jena Hamadani, and Brach Champion).
[ Abstract ] | Recent Draft ]
This paper examines the long-term and intergenerational effects of improving the early childhood health environment on human capital in Bangladesh. In adulthood, children eligible for health promoting interventions exhibit increased height and reduced short stature, while males achieve higher levels of educational attainment. These finding are concentrated among individuals with the lowest pre-program health endowment, reducing inequality in human capital across generations, and underscoring the program’s distributional implications. Intergenerational effects reveal daughters experienced increased height, reduced stunting, and improved cognitive outcomes. The findings suggest that failing to consider distributional and intergenerational effects of programs could lead to underinvestment in children.
Economic Consequences of Childhood Exposure to Urban Environmental Toxins (with Dustin Frye). 2023.
[ Abstract] | Recent Draft]
During the late nineteenth century, half of all municipalities installed lead water pipes, exposing millions of people to harmful levels of lead consumption. This paper explores the long-term, and intergenerational, effects of waterborne lead exposure on men's labor market outcomes using linked samples drawn from the full count censuses. For identification, we leverage variation in lead pipe adoption across cities and differences in the chemical properties of a town's water supply, which interact to influence the extent of lead leaching. Results show adult men with higher levels of waterborne lead exposure as children have lower incomes, worse occupations, and lower levels of completed education compared to adult men who had lower levels of waterborne lead exposure as children. Men who are exposed to higher levels of waterborne lead have a significantly decreased probability of improving their income rank relative to their fathers, which is consistent with lead exposure behaving like a negative place-based shock that constrains upward mobility.
Research in Progress
Gendered Inheritance and the Gender Profit Gap: Evidence from Ghana (with Morgan Hardy and Angela Orozco)
Female Labor Market Opportunities, Household Decision-Making Power and Domestic Violence: Evidence from the Bangladesh Garment Industry
Long Run Impacts of Famine Exposure: A Study of the 1974 – 1975 Bangladesh Famine (with Brach Champion)
The Devil is in the Pre-Tales: A Closer Look at Women’s First Months in Industrial Work (with Morgan Hardy and Christian Johannes Meyer)
