Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/80628
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7386
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The world's poorest people lack capital and skills and toil for others in occupations that others shun. Using a large-scale and long-term randomized control trial in Bangladesh this paper demonstrates that sizable transfers of assets and skills enable the poorest women to shift out of agricultural labor and into running small businesses. This shift, which persists and strengthens after assistance is withdrawn, leads to a 38% increase in earnings. Inculcating basic entrepreneurship, where severely disadvantaged women take on occupations which were the preserve of non-poor women, is shown to be a powerful means of transforming the economic lives of the poor.
Subjects: 
asset transfers
capital constraints
vocational training
occupational choice
structural change
poverty
JEL: 
O12
I30
D50
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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