Seminar at University of British Columbia
I gave a seminar at UBC 17 March on my paper "Gone with the Wind? Hurricane Risk, Fertility and Education". I am in the process of revising the paper based on comments from seminar participants and referee reports I have gotten. An revised version should be ready in the not too distant future.
Pacific Development Conference
I presented my paper on "Natural Hazards and Child Health" at the Pacific Development Conference at SFSU in San Francisco this last Saturday. Anoshua Chaudhuri did a great job at arranging the conference (Anoshua is a graduate from the UW graduate programme and is an assistant professor at SFSU). The only "problem" with the conference is that it is almost too short; only one day which does not allow a lot of time to chat with people.
Seminar at University of Michigan
I gave a seminar at the Population Studies Center at University of Michigan Monday 9 March 2009. The paper, "The Demand for Sex Selective Abortions," is still work in progress, but the presentation is here. Note that since this is work in progress methods and results might/will change, especially in light of the very useful comments I got during my visit. The abstract is:
One of the major changes that have taken place in India over the last two decades is a significant shift in the sex ratio at birth, as techniques for prenatal sex determination have become more widely available. There has, however, been little analysis of which factors influence the decision to abort female fetuses at the individual level. Furthermore, the sparse literature does not address the relationship between fertility, spacing and the demand for sex selective abortions, which may lead to biased estimates of the determinants of sex selective abortions. Using data from the three rounds of the National Family and Health Survey this paper relies on the observed spacing between births to examine the determinants of the demand for sex selective abortions. By employing a discrete hazard model it is possible to simultaneously control for the fertility and abortion decisions, while taking account of censoring and unobservable characteristics that might affect either.
David Lam seminar Friday 20 February
David Lam (University of Michigan) will be giving a seminar Friday 20 February at 2.00 PM in Condon 309. The title of his talk is "Schooling as a Lottery: Racial Differences in School Advancement in Urban South Africa". The abstract is below:
This paper develops a stochastic model of grade repetition to analyze the large racial differences in progress through secondary school in South Africa. The model predicts that a larger stochastic component in the link between learning and measured performance will generate higher enrollment, higher failure rates, and a weaker link between ability and grade progression.Using recently collected longitudinal data we find that progress through secondary school is strongly associated with scores on a baseline literacy and numeracy test. In grades 8-11 the effect of these scores on grade progression is much stronger for white and coloured students than for African students, while there is no racial difference in the impact of the scores on passing the nationally standardized grade 12 matriculation exam. The results provide strong support for our model, suggesting that grade progression in African schools is poorly linked to actual ability and learning. The results point to the importance of considering the stochastic component of grade repetition in analyzing school systems with high failure rates.
How much has abortions increased among the very young in Denmark?
Many newspapers in Denmark reported on 17 February 2009 that there has been an alarming increase in the number of abortions among girls below 15 years of age. One paper (Berlingske.dk in Danish) reported it as a more than 200 percent increase over a decade. In 1998 there were 33 abortions among girls less than 15 years of age, while in 2007 there were 113 for the same age group. Looking for an explanation one paper (Jyllands-Posten in Danish) interviewed a doctor who said that the increase was due to deteriorating sex education in schools and lack of communication between parents and girls.
Many newspapers in Denmark reported on 17 February 2009 that there has been an alarming increase in the number of abortions among girls below 15 years of age. One paper (Berlingske.dk in Danish) reported it as a more than 200 percent increase over a decade. In 1998 there were 33 abortions among girls less than 15 years of age, while in 2007 there were 113 for the same age group. Looking for an explanation one paper (Jyllands-Posten in Danish) interviewed a doctor who said that the increase was due to deteriorating sex education in schools and lack of communication between parents and girls.
Both of those explanations might be true, but how much has the number of abortions really gone up?
The top graph show the development in the absolute numbers which is what the newspapers based their story on. Now that would be perfectly fine if the number of girls stayed the same over this period of time, but clearly that was not the case (and it takes all of 10 minutes to determine that from Denmark's Statistical Office). Hence, the bottom graph shows the development in the number of abortions per 1000 girls. The blue line is the rate for abortions per 1000 girls using those ages 12, 13 and 14, while the top one is the number of abortions per 1000 girls using those aged 13 or 14. True, the numbers have gone up, but 1998 begins to look like an anomaly and if that is the case the increase has been about 45 percent.
Furthermore, these numbers are so small there is bound to be a fair bit of noise. Unfortunately, I could not find earlier data on the number of abortions and there is also no on-line data on the number of births for girls below 15 years of age. One of the papers has the numbers for the first half of 2008 and if the number is the same for the second half the rate using girls 12-14 as base would fall back down to 1.06.
Most important questions in development?
3ie (International Initiative for Impact Evaluation) has a new questionnaire out, where they are looking for people's opinions about what the most important questions in development are. Below are the details and the link to the questionnaire.
Dear colleagues
3ie is a new organization dedicated to enhancing development outcomes through the promotion of evidence-based policy making. A survey has been launched to identify the most important questions on which 3ie should commission impact studies to produce evidence for policy-makers in low and middle income countries. The questions listed in the survey were collected in an earlier exercise, but there is an opportunity in the survey to propose new questions.
To take the survey please follow this link
http://www.3ieimpact.org/page.php?pg=medium
Please forward this message to ALL your colleagues to help us obtain a good response to this survey, encouraging them to also forward it. The survey will close on Friday January 30th.
Many thanks for your time
Howard White Executive Director, 3ie
3ie website www.3ieimpact.org
Ubuntu
Okay, so this is strictly speaking not about research, but it has interesting applications for developing countries. There is a nice article about Ubuntu and Shuttleworth (its sponsor or benefactor) in this Sunday's NY Times (see link below). Essentially, Ubuntu is a open-source operating system based on Linux. The difference from previous flavours of Linux is that it is very easy to deal with and has a very nice interface. I have it on both of my desktops (home and work), on my new eee 1000 pc, my old lap top and a version of it runs my mail, web, music and file server at home.
What really makes it interesting for developing countries, however, is the price: USD 0. You can download it for free and install it for free. In addition, there is a substantial amount of help available if you do run into trouble. Combine this with other open source programs like OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird and a user in a developing country can save a substantial amount of money and not fall foul of the anti-piracy laws. Of course, it will not get you an internet connection or even electricity if you do not have that, but then again neither will any of the other operating systems.
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows By ASHLEE VANCE A version of the Linux operating system called Ubuntu represents the fastest-growing threat to Microsoft in developed countries.
PACDEV 2009 Submission Deadline on Feb 1
This is a highly recommended conference. More information on the conference below or you can get in touch with me. Pacific Conference for Development Economics Saturday, March 14, 2009 http://bss.sfsu.edu/economics/newsevents/pacdev.htm San Francisco State University
Please note that the conference submission deadline is fast approaching. If you have not already sent in your paper, please submit your paper (or extended abstract) by February 1st. Submission and registration information is available on the conference website.
Panel on Iraq and development
Friday 14 November I was on a panel on Iraq, organised by the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, with Prof. Ellis Goldberg from political science, UW, and Judy Joseph from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. My role was mainly to answer questions from the officers about development economics and how it might apply to Iraq. It was a very interesting experience, although giving much guidance is difficult since the brigade does not even know where in Iraq they are going.
NEUDC conference in Boston
I went to Boston for the annual NEUDC conference last weekend. It is always interesting to see what people are working on ... and catching up with old friends. My paper on adult literacy in Ghana (which is joint work with Niels-Hugo Blunch) was part of the poster session and we got some good comments (plus it gave me a chance to figure out how to make posters in LaTeX!). The final result is here.
Seminar at SMU, Dallas
I gave a seminar at SMU in Dallas 26 September 2008. The paper was "Gone with the Wind? Hurricane Risk, Fertility and Education."
Why *not* to use an on-line translator
This has nothing to do with research, but if you can read Danish this is absolutely hilarious. Somebody at washingtonwine.org wrote a little blurb about wines in Washington and fed it into an on-line translator:
This has nothing to do with research, but if you can read Danish this is absolutely hilarious. Somebody at washingtonwine.org wrote a little blurb about wines in Washington and fed it into an on-line translator:
Velkommen hen til Afvaskning Vin Landskab Når det drejer sig om den kunsten at vin , Afvaskning Påstå ja kende dens " skræk " det var det den kombination i jord , klima og geografi at gør al vin adskilt. Netop opfordre den kritikken! Ideal jord , af stort omfang sunlight og hed dage hos afkøle aften betyder Afvaskning producerer noget af den bedst vin på jorden. Simpelt hen glæde sig ved en barometer i Afvaskning vin overalt hvor du er , eller opsøge Afvaskning vin landskab nemlig en stor erfaring.
Interestingly enough if you feed it back into Google Translate you get something you can actually understand (well, maybe not entirely):
Welcome to Washington Wine Landscape When it comes to the art of wine, Washington Stats yes know its "terror" it was the combination of soil, climate and geography that makes all wines separately. Just invite the criticism! Ideal soil, the extent to sunlight and hot days with cool evening means Washington produces some of the best wine on earth. Simple pleasure at a barometer of Washington wine wherever you are, or visit Washington wine landscape for a great experience.
The best part is that Washington becomes "Washing off" in Danish (think cleaning the dishes). The logic is clear ... the first part of Washington clearly means to clean! Maybe it is not quite the association you would want with your wine, but, hey, to each his own: Mmmm, try this delicious dish water wine ;-). That the translator put in "terror" is less surprising since the original work is French rather than Danish: "Terroir".
Missing women in China and Hepatitis B
This is not quite new (January 2008), but it is a very interesting look at whether Hepatitis B can really explain a substantial part of the sex ratio in China as claimed by Oster 2005. The paper is by Monica Das Gupta of the World Bank and you can find the paper here. The abstract nicely sums up the main problem with the Oster argument:
China has a large deficit of females, and public policies have sought to reduce the son preference that is widely believed to cause this. Recently a study has suggested that up to 75 percent of this deficit is attributable to hepatitis B infection, indicating that immunization programs should form the first plank of policy interventions. However, a large medical dataset from Taiwan (China) shows that hepatitis B infection raises women's probability of having a son by only 0.25 percent. And demographic data from China show that the only group of women who have elevated probabilities of bearing a son are those who have already borne daughters. This pattern makes it difficult to see how any biological factor can explain a large part of the imbalance in China's sex ratios at birth -- unless it can be shown that it somehow selectively affects those who have borne girls, or causes them to first bear girls and then boys. The Taiwanese data suggest that this is not the case with hepatitis B, since its impact is unaffected by the sex composition of previous births. The data support the cultural, rather than the biological, explanation for the "missing women."
Literacy, Skills and Welfare
Niels-Hugo Blunch and I have revised our paper "Literacy, Skills and Welfare: Effects of Participation in Adult Literacy Programs" for resubmission to Economic Development and Cultural Change. The abstract is below.
This paper examines the effects of adult literacy program participation on household consumption in Ghana. We use community fixed effects combined with instrumental variables to account for possible endogenous program placement and self-selection into program participation. For households where none of the adults have completed any formal education we find a substantial, positive and statistically significant effect on household consumption. Our preferred estimate of the effect of participation for households without education is equivalent to a ten percent increase in consumption per adult equivalent. There is, however, little evidence that other households benefit from participation in terms of welfare. The improvements in literacy and numeracy rates are also mainly concentrated among participants with little or no formal schooling, although most participants appear to gain in skills to some extent. Taking account of both direct cost and opportunity cost we argue that the social returns to adult literacy programs are substantial.