predictive control variables for OLS (the Post-Double Selection Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator, PDS Lasso, following Belloni et al. (2013, 2014a,b, 2016)), a regression discontinuity approach using the operator rankings, and a matching method. They all lead to the same conclusions. The promotion program was indeed successful in advancing women’s careers. The selected women were assigned to work as supervisors for at least two months, and therefore gained experience in a leadership position. Within the first year after the promotion program start, selected women were 24 percentage points more likely to have been officially promoted to supervisor compared to the shortlisted comparison group, and more were still waiting for an official promotion at the time of the surveys.<sup>5</sup> For the officially promoted women, personal income increased by about 17% compared to the shortlisted group.

The women who were selected for the promotion program become significantly more involved in household decision-making in the short term than the comparison group, especially regarding purchases of clothing for the women themselves. The selected women are able to translate this increase in decision-making power into higher expenditures on assignable goods for women and girls, and on remittances.<sup>6</sup> When using the main PDS Lasso specification, the share of household income spent on women’s goods (especially clothing and accessories) increases to about 8%, compared to 5.3% in the comparison group. I cannot entirely exclude that part of this effect might be driven by the need to look more professional in the new managerial position, but argue that increasing effect sizes over time make this improbable. This is also unlikely to be the reason for the increase in the income share spent on girls’ goods (especially education), from 1.6% to 2.9%, and the large effects I find on remittances. The latter increase from 6% of household income to about 9.5%, which appears to result primarily from transfers to family members who take care of the couple’s children living outside the household. The large increase in remittances hence seems to mask expenditures on children.

Further analysis suggests that the increase in household expenditures on female assignable goods and remittances is not primarily due to an income effect resulting from the promotion. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the monetary increase in female assignable expenditures and remittances combined is more than two times as large as the increase in personal income. These magnitudes suggest that the selected women are not just able to appropriate additional income they may earn as a result of a promotion, but also that a reallocation of income the women would have earned in the absence of the program is taking place. This indicates that the promotion

> 5Note that ten nominees from the shortlisted comparison group joined the promotion program as replacements for women from the selected group who dropped out of the program. Four of these replacement nominees reported that they had been officially promoted during the household surveys. These replacements are part of the comparison group in the analysis.

> 6I define assignable goods as private goods whose nature allows the researcher to deduce that they are consumed exclusively or primarily by a specific type of household member.

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