Exploiting a randomized natural experiment in India, we show that female leadership influences adolescent girls’ career aspirations and educational attainment. A 1993 law reserved leadership positions for women in randomly selected village councils. Using 8,453 surveys of adolescents aged 11–15 and their parents in 495 villages, we find that, compared to villages that were never reserved, the gender gap in aspirations closed by 25% in parents and 32% in adolescents in villages assigned to a female leader for two election cycles. The gender gap in adolescent educational attainment is erased and girls spent less time on household chores. We find no evidence of changes in young women’s labor market opportunities, suggesting that the impact of women leaders primarily reflects a role model effect.

We exploit random assignment of

Recent theoretical work suggests that social networks may play an important role in the dynamics of employment and wages across groups of individuals. This paper provides empirical evidence of job information flows within social networks and the non-linear relationship between social network size and labor market outcomes. An extended version of the model developed by Calvo-Armengol and Jackson (2004) shows that competition can exist between network members for job referrals and investigates the dynamics between the size of a social network, the tenure of network members and labor market outcomes. The predictions of the model are tested empirically using a unique data-set of refugees resettled in the U.S. from 2001-2005. The empirical strategy exploits the special institutional environment of refugee resettlement. I find that a one standard deviation increase in the number of network members who have arrived in the U.S. one year ago lowers the probability of employment by 4.9% and the average hourly wage by $.70. Conversely, as predicted by the model, more tenured network members improve labor market outcomes for recently arrived refugees. Mark Rosenzweig, Petia Topalova, Chris Udry and seminar participants at Yale's Labor and Development Lunches for feedback and encouragement.I instead provide a theoretical framework which extends the work of Calvo-Armengol and Jackson to examine the short-run dynamics of a network-based job information model in an overlapping generations framework. Individuals have a random probability of receiving job information.This information is either used to obtain a job or passed on to an unemployed member in the individual's social network. The model predicts that having a larger network can in some cases lead to a deterioration in labor market outcomes. More specifically, competition can exist between network members for job information, thus creating a non-monotonic relationship between the size of a social network and labor market outcomes depending on the tenure of network members. In fact changes in social network size will differentially influence labor market outcomes over time: an increase in the size of a given cohort will first decrease the employment rate and average hourly wage of cohorts who arrive close in time to the large cohort, while improving outcomes for those cohorts that arrive sufficiently later.The empirical analysis provides evidence that an increase in network size has heterogenous effects across network members, as predicted by the dynamic job information transmission model. I find that a one standard deviation increase in the number of network members who arrive in the U.S.in one year prior lowers the probability of employment for a new arrival by 4.9 percentage points.This indicates that the within-network competition effect is economically significant. Conversely, as predicted by the model, more tenured network members improve the labor market outcomes for 3 recently arrived refugees. An analogous increase in the number of network members who have two year...

We exploit random assignment of gender quotas across Indian village councils to investigate whether having a female chief councillor affects public opinion towards female leaders.Villagers who have never been required to have a female leader prefer male leaders and perceive hypothetical female leaders as less effective than their male counterparts, when stated performance is identical. Exposure to a female leader does not alter villagers' taste preference for male leaders. However, it weakens stereotypes about gender roles in the public and domestic spheres and eliminates the negative bias in how female leaders' effectiveness is perceived among male villagers. Female villagers exhibit less prior bias, but are also less likely to know about or participate in local politics; as a result, their attitudes are largely unaffected. Consistent with our experimental findings, villagers rate their women leaders as less effective when exposed to them for the first, but not second, time. These changes in attitude are electorally meaningful: after 10 years of the quota policy, women are more likely to stand for and win free seats in villages that have been continuously required to have a female chief councillor.

We exploit random assignment of