Changes in transport costs can affect mobility in ways that differ across the population, affecting the impacts of transport policies. We randomly assign large price reductions on Uber in Egypt over a 3-month period and collect comprehensive data on participant mobility using Google Timeline. A 50% price reduction quadruples Uber usage and induces a 42% increase in total travel. Effects and welfare gains are larger for women, who are less mobile at baseline and perceive public transit as unsafe. The price elasticity of private vehicle kilometers traveled (-1.28) implies that mobility and external costs increase substantially when ride-hailing prices fall.

We experimentally study the impact of relatively large enterprise loans in Egypt. Larger loans generate small average impacts, but machine learning using psychometric data reveals “ top performers” (those with the highest predicted treatment effects) substantially increase profits, while profits drop for poor performers. The large differences imply that lender credit allocation decisions matter for aggregate income, yet we find existing practice leads to substantial misallocation. We argue that some entrepreneurs are overoptimistic and squander the opportunities presented by larger loans by taking on too much risk, and show the promise of allocations based on entrepreneurial type relative to firm characteristics.

We conduct a randomized experiment that generates exogenous variation in the access to foreign markets for rug producers in Egypt. Combined with detailed survey data, we causally identify the impact of exporting on firm performance. Treatment firms report 16–26% higher profits and exhibit large improvements in quality alongside reductions in output per hour relative to control firms. These findings do not simply reflect firms being offered higher margins to manufacture high-quality products that take longer to produce. Instead, we find evidence of learning-by-exporting whereby exporting improves technical efficiency. First, treatment firms have higher productivity and quality after controlling for rug specifications. Second, when asked to produce an identical domestic rug using the same inputs and same capital equipment, treatment firms produce higher quality rugs despite no difference in production time. Third, treatment firms exhibit learning curves over time. Finally, we document knowledge transfers with quality increasing most along the specific dimensions that the knowledge pertained to.