Innovative firms with good ideas may still struggle to fine-tune them to the stage where they can attract outside funding. We conduct a five-country randomized experiment that tests the impact of an investment readiness program. Firms then pitched their ideas to independent judges. The program resulted in a 0.3 standard deviation increase in the investment readiness score. Two years later, the average impacts on firm investment outcomes are positive but small in magnitude and not statistically significant. Larger and statistically significant impacts on receiving outside funding occur for smaller firms and for firms with lower likelihoods of otherwise being funded.

We collate sixteen panel surveys from twelve developing countries to develop stylized facts from over 14,000 firms on how much firm death there is, which types of these firms are most likely to die, and why they die. Small firms die at an average rate of 8.2% per year. Death rates are higher in richer countries, for younger firms and less profitable firms, and for firms run by youth. We also find that firm death need not mean permanent exit from self-employment for the firm owner.

This study examines the impact of a randomized experiment in Jordan in which female community college graduates were assigned to receive a wage subsidy voucher. The wage voucher led to a 38 percentage point increase in employment in the short run, but the average effect is much smaller and no longer statistically significant after the voucher period has expired. The extra job experience gained as a result of the wage subsidy does not provide a stepping-stone to new jobs for these recent graduates, which appears to be due to productivity levels not rising above a binding minimum wage.

Seasonal migration programs are widely used around the world, yet there is little evidence as to their development impacts. A multiyear prospective evaluation of New Zealand's Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) seasonal worker program allows us to measure the impact of participating in this program on households in Tonga and Vanuatu. Using a propensity-score prescreened difference-in-differences analysis based on surveys fielded before, during, and after participation, we find that the RSE has indeed had positive development impacts that dwarf those of other popular development interventions. It has increased income, consumption, and savings of households; durable goods ownership; and subjective standard of living. The results also suggest that child schooling improved in Tonga.

We use a migration lottery program to overcome the double-selectivity problems posed by migration. We compare a wide range of outcomes for the remaining household members of Tongan emigrants with those of members of similar households who were unsuccessful in the lottery, with the policy rules determining which household members can move. Multiple hypothesis testing procedures are used to examine robustness. The overall impact on households left behind is largely negative in terms of resource availability, and both sources of selectivity matter, leading studies that fail to address them adequately to misrepresent the impact of migration on households.

This paper examines the role of migration networks in determining self-selection patterns of Mexico-U.S. migration. A simple theoretical framework shows the impact of networks on migration incentives at different education levels and how this affects the composition of migrant skills. Empirically, we find positive or education-neutral selection in communities with weak migrant networks but negative self-selection in communities with stronger networks. This is consistent with high migration costs driving positive or intermediate self-selection, as advocated by Chiquiar and Hanson (2005), and with negative self-selection being driven by lower returns to education in the United States than in Mexico, as advocated by Borjas (1987).