1. Cash Is Queen: Local Economy Growth Effects of Unconditional Cash Transfers to Women in West Africa 2. Agricultural Labor as a Constraints for Women Farmers Time Use Management and Markets

My thesis includes three different papers. here I will include the summary of the one that is in the msot advance stage.

Cash Is Queen: Local Economy Growth Effects of Unconditional Cash Transfers to Women in West Africa

This paper studies the direct and indirect effects of unconditional cash transfers to women on the female labor supply response in Northern Nigeria. The study is conducted in an ultra-poor setting in an environment where women face restrictive gender norms. In a cash transfer randomized control trial nested in a larger quasi-experimental design, we find cash transfer recipient women in ultra-poor households entering the labor market by starting rural non-farm businesses. The cash transfer direct effect on starting a business is 5.5 percentage points relative to non-beneficiaries in non-program villages, measured one month after the cessation of the transfer payments. Over one year later, we find evidence of substantial growth in business entry by cash transfer beneficiary women plus positive local spillovers to non-beneficiary women within villages where cash transfers were being paid (+22pp CT effect and +21pp indirect effect of women working in business relative to women in non-program villages). Our results are consistent with spillovers through market mechanisms where the aggregate demand shock associated with the introduction of the cash transfers led to a boost in business creation and profits among non-beneficiary women in villages where transfers were being paid. The positive impacts beyond the direct effects on cash transfer beneficiaries suggests that alleviating liquidity constraints can lead to longer run growth through market behavior. In addition, we find that women appear to be making strategic investments in the type of work that they choose to pursue: i) the majority of women (73%) start businesses located in or close to their home where participation perhaps requires breaking norms around women’s work but does not necessarily require breaking social customs around mobility; ii) we find gains from agglomeration where clusters of complementary types of businesses are operated by women who are in spatially close proximity to each other. We do not find evidence of any local price effects