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Abstract:This paper uses data from artefactual field experiments and surveys conducted in 61 villages in India to examine whether men and women respond differently to women as leaders. We investigate the extent to which behavior towards female leaders is influenced by experience with women in leadership positions. We find evidence of significant male backlash against female leaders, which can be attributed to the transgression of social norms and in particular, a violation of male identity, when women are assigned to positions of leadership through gender based quotas. Increased exposure to female leaders reduces the extent of bias.

This paper examines the economic returns from participating in a subsidized vocational education program in stitching and tailoring offered to women residing in certain disadvantaged areas of New Delhi, India. The availability of pre and post-training data in an experimental framework allows us to measure the effects of participating in this program on employment, hours worked, job search, earnings, female empowerment, entrepreneurship and measures of life satisfaction. The program, in less than a year, has generated substantial improvement in labor market outcomes for these women. In particular, we find that women who were randomly offered the training program are almost five percentage points more likely to be employed, six percentage points more likely to look for a job and on an average work two additional hours in the posttraining period compared to those who were not offered the training. We find that during the post-training period, women in the treatment group earn twice as much as women in the control group. There is a also a large increase in ownership of sewing machine in the post-training period. The program impacts are much larger for women who completed the training program. We also find that the program effects vary with participants' intrinsic preferences for risk, competition, and confidence. Finally, a simple cost-benefit analysis suggests that the program is highly cost effective and there are considerable gains from both continuing the program in the current location and replicating it in different locations.

This article examines why firms in Shanghai comply or over-comply with social insurance obligations in a regulatory environment where the expected punishment for non-compliance is low. Our first finding is that firms found to be in non-compliance in the first audit in 2001 were moved into a separate violation category and the probability of being reaudited in 2002 was significantly higher if the firm was in that category. Our second main result is that, across the board, firms which were reaudited continued to underpay in 2002 but the extent of underpayment was significantly reduced.

Education and human capital accumulation are essential components of economic development. The present paper attempts to identify some of the individual and household level characteristics that affect the demand for schooling in Bangladesh. I examine the current enrolment status of children aged 6-12 and the highest grade attained for children aged 13-24. The first is estimated using a standard probit model and the second using a censored ordered probit model. Estimation results show that there is no gender differential in current enrolment status but grade attainment is higher for girls, relative to boys. An increase in the permanent income of the household is always associated with an increase in educational attainment. Parental education has a positive and statistically significant effect on the educational attainment of children, and mother's education has a stronger effect on both school enrolment and grade attainment of children compared with father's education.Schooling, Education Attainment, Censored Ordered Probit, Bangladesh,