- The same regulation can have different effects on women and men, even when it applies equally to everyone.
- GDLab is launching a call for research proposals to better understand how regulation and fiscal policy can expand economic opportunities.
- Evidence generated in the region can help inform more effective policies that expand economic opportunities.
Firms with at least one woman owner may spend around 30 additional minutes per week dealing with government regulations compared with similar firms with no women owners.
Simplifying business registration, changing the rules for accessing credit, modifying tax rules, or expanding parental leave can create new opportunities. In practice, these measures can have different effects on women and men. Tax systems can also affect the incomes and economic decisions of women and men differently, while some business and labor reforms have produced outcomes that vary between the two groups. There is still much to learn about when these differences emerge, what explains them, and which policies can help expand economic opportunities.
To help answer these questions, GDLab, a knowledge initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group, is launching a new call for research proposals on economic opportunities for women and men and the role of regulation and fiscal policy. The call seeks to generate new, rigorous evidence that can inform more effective policies aimed at expanding economic opportunities across Latin America and the Caribbean. The IDB Group is composed of the IDB, IDB Invest, and IDB Lab.
The call seeks to understand when, how, and why regulatory, financial, fiscal, and labor reforms can lead to different outcomes for women and men. It also aims to assess how effective policy instruments are at expanding opportunities for economic participation, including those designed to reduce barriers that may affect women and men differently. Studies must use quantitative methods capable of identifying causal relationships and generating policy-relevant evidence.
There are four main areas of interest:
- Regulatory simplification and digital government, and their effects on formalization, compliance costs, and access to public services.
- Financial regulation and access to credit and formal markets, including rules and instruments that can facilitate or constrain access to finance.
- Tax design and economic participation, including effects on formalization, employment, and income.
- Labor regulation and formal employment, and its implications for employment, job quality, and earnings.
These areas are intended to guide potential research questions. Download the call brochure for more detail on the thematic areas and proposal requirements.
Independent researchers and teams affiliated with public or private entities, universities, or research centers are eligible to apply. All team members must be citizens of one of the 48 IDB member countries and meet the eligibility criteria set out in the call. IDB Group specialists may also participate in collaboration with external teams.
Proposals will be evaluated based on their thematic and policy relevance, innovation, methodological rigor, scalability, replicability, and the research team’s capacity to carry out the project. The Scientific Committee includes Lori Beaman (Northwestern University) and Guillermo Cruces (Universidad de San Andrés and University of Nottingham), along with IDB Group specialists.
Proposals must be submitted in English by September 24, 2026, at 12:00 p.m. ET (noon). Applications must be submitted through Oxford Abstracts and include the application form and all required documents.
Join this call and contribute to generating evidence that can help shape policies that expand economic opportunities across the region.
For more information on eligibility requirements, evaluation criteria, the timeline, and the application process: