Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev)
I presented my paper on family planning in Ethiopia (joint with Kathleen Beegle and Luc Christiaesen, both from the World Bank) at the 8th annual Pacific Conference for Development Economics held at UC Berkeley. I also chaired a session on "Local Economic Shocks and Risk Sharing." As usual the conference was well attended and Ted Miguel did a great job at putting together a very nice conference.
Seminar at ARE, UC Berkeley
I presented my work on Sex Selective Abortion, Fertility and Birth Spacing at the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley Friday 25 February.
Congratulations to Mark Anderson
Another of my graduate students, Mark Anderson, has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at Montana State University in the Department of Economics.
Congratulation to Momoe Makino
One of my graudate students, Momoe Makino, has accepted a job as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE) in Japan. She is scheduled to begin working there in August.
Want to go to law school?
If you are interested in going to law school it might be worthwhile reading this article from the New York Times. You might still want to go, but at least you will have more information before making your decision.
Visit to Washington and Lee University
I visited Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA on 22-24 November. I gave a talk about family planning in Ethiopia to some of their undergraduate and had a Q&A session with students from their poverty program. I also gave a talk to the Economics faculty on my work on sex selective abortions.
CSDE seminar presentation on family planning in Ethiopia
I am presenting my paper "Family Planning and Fertility: Estimating Program Effects using Cross-sectional Data" today at the CSDE seminar series. The seminar runs from 12.30 to 1.30 PM and is at Thomson Hall, rm 125. You can find the current version of the paper here. The paper is joint with Kathleen Beegle and Luc Christiaensen. The abstract is:
This paper uses a novel method of identifying the effects of a family planning program when there is endogenous program placement and only cross-sectional data are available, a situation common in many developing countries. Using data from Ethiopia we find that access to family planning substantially reduces the number of children ever born for women without education; the reduction is especially pronounced for women younger than 20 and older than 30. Completed fertility, measured as children ever born for women aged 40 to 45, falls by more than one birth with access to family planning. These effects are statistically significant and substantially larger than previous studies have found. For women who have gone to school there is no evidence of an impact of family planning on fertility. Based on a relative small reduction in child mortality we argue that the effect on fertility is due to family planning access and not the concurrent presence of health facilities. Finally, family planning access reduces unwanted fertility, especially for older women.
Mark Anderson interviewed about Montana Meth Project
My student, Mark Anderson was on Hawii Public Radio recently talking about his forthcoming paper in Journal of Health Economics showing that the Montana Meth Project had no discernible effect on meth use once the pre-existing downward trend is taken into account. You can listen to the interview. The paper is available from his home page. Mark will be on the job market this year.
New version of Sex Selective Abortions, Fertility and Birth Spacing
I have revised and shorten my paper on sex selective abortions in India. You can find the new version here. I have also split off the appendix with additional figures. The appendix is available here. Abstract:
Previous research on sex selective abortions has ignored the interactions between fertility, birth spacing and sex selection. This paper presents a novel approach that jointly estimates the determinants of sex selective abortions, fertility and birth spacing, using data from India's National Family and Health Surveys. For well educated Indian women the predicted number of abortions during childbearing is six percent higher after sex selection became illegal than before while their predicted fertility is eleven percent lower and around replacement level. Women with less education have substantially higher fertility and do not appear to use sex selection.
Human Health and Climate Change
I am co-author on a chapter on "Human Health and Climate Change" in the book "Reducing Poverty, Protecting Livelihoods, and Building Assets in a Changing Climate: Social Implications of Climate Change Latin America and the Caribbean." The book is edited by Dorte Verner and just came out from the World Bank. More information is available from World Bank Publications. Update: You can also read the book through the embedded book below. [issuu layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Flight%2Flayout.xml showflipbtn=true documentid=100708190344-b94b553ea2dc42089e4e36f33afb22a2 docname=9780821382387 username=World.Bank.Publications loadinginfotext=Reducing%20Poverty%2C%20Protecting%20Livelihoods%2C%20and%20Building%20Assets%20in%20a%20Changing%20Climate showhtmllink=true tag=adaptation width=420 height=315 unit=px]
Podcast on my sex selective abortion research
I did a podcast with CSDE's Information Core Director, David Hyllegaard, on my recent research on the relation between fertility, birth spacing and the use of sex selective abortions in India. The announcement is at http://csde.washington.edu/news/notices/noticesPodcast_CPortner.shtml. There you can either download the MP3 file or see directions on how to get the podcast through iTunes.
Ghana
I will be in Ghana from tomorrow until 22 June. Niels-Hugo Blunch and I are working on setting up a randomised evaluations of adult literacy programs in Ghana. Our paper, forthcoming in Economic Development and Cultural Change, explains more about the programs and their effects. Unfortunately, the data were not detailed enough for us to examine why there is a large positive effect of participation. The randomised evaluation is meant to address this question as described in the project summary.
More congratulations
Nalina Varanasi passed her final exam today. The title of her dissertation is "Essays in Labor Economics". She will be taking up a position as a post-graduate fellow at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation here at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Congratulations
Congratulations to Yu-I Peng and Edwin Wong. Both passed their final exams today. Yu-I Peng will be an assistant professor at the Department of Public Finance at National Taipei University in Taiwan and Edwin Wong will take up a post-doc at the VA here in Seattle.