expression (2) is positive ( d[μGs (τ) −μGp(τ)]/dτY > 0). In economies where the gender distortion is binding (i.e. λG is large) and the second-order interaction is negative because the gender distortion does not decline d[μGs (τ) −μGp(τ)]/dτY < 0 , the overall welfare gain from the reduction of the most-binding constraint to growth will be less than the direct effect given by λY. The “trickle-down” approach is followed by some bilateral development agencies. While there is no doubt, as with poverty alleviation efforts, that economic growth is a necessary prerequisite for improved welfare outcomes, it is not a sufficient condition for either poverty reduction or improvements in women’s economic status.<sup>13,14</sup> A third and in our view practically impossible approach is to encourage a review of actions regarding beneficiaries of polices or investments and to ensure that women benefit from them. In the extreme this approach is equivalent to the idea of a wholesale reform in HRV (2005), which requires complete knowledge of all prevailing distortions and the capacity to remove them all, resulting in τG=0 and λG=0. The problem is that for most countries, this approach is unfeasible. We uncharitably call this the “checklist” approach to gender and development, but it too has its adherents. And to be clear, there are good reasons to look at the benefit-incidence of policies and to try and shape them appropriately once national growth priority areas are identified. It would make little sense to promote education reform in a country and not be aware of gender differences and not address them in the design of reforms. But all too often, standard development projects are reviewed to see whether gender has been taken into account as a substitute for ex ante design of projects that alleviate constraints to women’s economic fortunes. There is a decided difference in the order in which project objectives are ranked and the checklist approach does not take women’s economic empowerment sufficiently on board as an objective of the intervention.

A fourth approach, proposed by Roncolato, Reksten and Grown (2017), is to ‘engender’ the HRV growth diagnostic process by providing gender disaggregated information in all activities and reinterpreting nodes in the HRV decision tree. This very elaborate and data intensive approach may produce deeper insights on binding constraints to reducing gender gaps but there is no indication that these distortions are also most-binding for economic growth. Therefore, removing them may lead to sub-optimal aggregate welfare outcomes. Operationalizing this strategy is difficult too because it involves many pieces coming together with an improved alignment and collaboration across sectors.

A fifth approach, proposed by Ianchovichina and Lundstrom (2009) (see also Ianchovichina and Lundstrom-Gable, 2012), blends the growth diagnostics of Hausman, Rodrik and Velasco (2005), which determines entrepreneurship growth and changes in labor demand, with an employability module that determines labor supply. Since the IG framework is used to identify the binding constraints to productive employment, it is a useful vehicle to identify the main constraints to female productive employment within

> 13 See Besley and Cord (2005), for example, on the links between economic growth and poverty gains.

> 14 See Atkinson (2015) on those factors associated with inequality more broadly.

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