Abstract

 Agency—the ability to set goals in line with one's values and act on them—is typically measured using indicators of observed behavior. This presentation shares findings from a multi-country measurement program in which new tools were developed and piloted across 76 data collection rounds in 18 countries, covering preferences over involvement in decision-making, underlying motivation, persuasion, control over time and agency as expressed in open-ended responses. We show what these new methods capture compared to standard measures, and how they relate to welfare outcomes (including labor supply, food security and subjective well-being). Our findings suggest that what people do, why they do it, and whether they could have done otherwise diverge in ways that matter for how agency is understood and measured.