Labor Markets in Developing Countries
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (EST)
- Chair: Seema Jayachandran, Princeton University
The Impact of AI on Developing Country Labor Markets
Abstract
Generative AI tools are widely being adopted in developing countries—-in India, for example, 92% of knowledge workers, or workers working at a desk, report utilizing AI tools in their job every day (2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report). Leveraging cross-occupation variation in exposure to AI, and combining data from the universe of LinkedIn profiles, job postings, and all workers on a large online freelancing platform, this study will examine how generative AI is reshaping employment, wages, career progression, productivity, and the distribution of gains and losses across workers in India and other markets.The Economic Consequences of Knowledge Hoarding
Abstract
Social learning is an important source of knowledge diffusion in low-income countries. However, the highly localized character of many labor markets could inhibit social learning by generating incentives for individuals to hoard knowledge. This paper studies the impact of knowledge hoarding on the diffusion of profitable skills and technologies in rural Burundi and measures its aggregate and distributional consequences for the village economy. In a field experiment covering 223 villages (labor markets), we encourage workers skilled in high-return agricultural technologies to share their knowledge with unskilled individuals. We randomize at the local labor market level whether the unskilled worker is a competitor (i.e., someone from the same labor market) and whether the training is about a technology with rivalrous rents (row planting, which commands a wage premium in the labor market). We first establish that knowledge hoarding indeed reduces social learning. When incumbents are matched with an individual from the same labor market, knowledge transmission occurs only 3% of the time, but this figure reaches 43% if the unskilled worker is not a competitor. In contrast, transmission of a technology with nonrivalrous rents (composting) is high regardless of the unskilled worker's identity. Next, we show that knowledge hoarding creates winners and losers: By hoarding knowledge, incumbents earn 6% more, and the skilled equilibrium wage is 3% higher. In contrast, unskilled workers' earnings and farm output are 7% and 20% lower, respectively. Overall, knowledge hoarding reduces technology adoption by over 20%, suggesting substantial yield losses. Finally, our results suggest that fear of social sanction is a mechanism that sustains knowledge hoarding among the incumbents, highlighting how social ties can foster social learning but also inhibit it when knowledge diffusion threatens incumbents' rents.Women’s Urban Mobility Barriers and Public Transportation: Evidence From Delhi
Abstract
Women travel significantly less than men within many cities in developing countries. We study three classes of barriers inhibiting women's mobility in Delhi, India: individual, household, and community. In a randomized experiment, we find that providing low-income women with a one-month bus pass increases their weekly trips, indicative of high latent demand. Women’s baseline level of mobility independence, including their independence within the household, substantially mediate these effects. After the expiration of the experiment's bus passes, the government made public buses free for all women and universally added bus marshals. We cannot detect an effect of these policies on mobility for low-income women, despite a large increase in overall female bus ridership and high policy awareness. Nevertheless, women who had received a bus pass during the experiment continue to travel relatively more after the citywide policies were enacted and the passes became obsolete. Together, our results demonstrate a substantial increasing return to mobility interventions, and that women face large individual-level mobility frictions that can be overcome by a personalized intervention.JEL Classifications
- O1 - Economic Development
- J4 - Particular Labor Markets