Which school systems sort weaker students into smaller classes? International evidence

We examine whether the sorting of high- and low-achieving students into classes of different sizes results in a regressive or compensatory pattern of class sizes for 18 national school systems. Sorting effects are identified by subtracting the causal effect of class size on performance from their total correlation. Our empirical results reveal strongly compensatory patterns of sorting within and especially between schools in many countries. Only the United States, which has a decentralized education finance and considerable residential mobility, exhibits regressive between-school sorting. Between-school sorting is more compensatory in systems with ability tracking. Within-school sorting is more compensatory where administrators rather than teachers assign students to classrooms.     

The signaling effects of education in the online lending market: Evidence from China

In this study, we use data from an online lending platform named Xinxindai in China to empirically study the signaling effects of education for the default risk of borrowers. Three dependent variables are created, namely, the probability of default, overdue payments and overdue amount, and probit models, count models and Tobit models are employed correspondingly. The number of universities in the “211 Project” of China at the city level is employed as the instrumental variable. The empirical evidence shows that education generally plays a strong signaling role in the identification of borrowers’ default risk in China. The negative marginal effect of education declines as borrowing times increase and as the marketization of regions deepens. This study helps to fill an important gap in the existing literature. Platforms and lenders can use educational level for reference in identifying the default risk of borrowers.     

Modelling the heterogeneous effects of stocking rate on dairy production: an application of unconditional quantile regression with fixed effects

This article analyses the effects of stocking rate on dairy production, using New Zealand dairy farm business data for the period 2005–2014. Unlike previous studies that assume a homogenous relationship between stocking rate and dairy production, we contribute to the literature by investigating the heterogeneous effects of stocking rate on milksolids production and applying an unconditional quantile regression model with fixed effects to control for unobserved farm-specific traits that are time invariant. The empirical results show that stocking rate exerts significant heterogeneous effects on milksolids production at different quantiles. In particular, we find that an additional increase in stocking rate (i.e. one cow/ha increase) increases milksolids production per hectare by between 17% and 25% but decreases milksolids production per cow by between 5% and 12%. In addition, we find that milking interval, dairy breed, farm labour, access to irrigation and farm location are important factors that increase milksolids production.     

Mother's education and child development: Evidence from the compulsory school reform in China

This paper investigates the causal impact of mother's schooling on various outcomes of adolescent development by exploiting the temporal and geographical variations in the enforcement of compulsory schooling laws in China. Using data from China Family Panel Studies, we find that mother's education increases adolescents’ school enrollment, math test scores, college aspiration, and internal locus of control related to education. Mother's education also improves adolescent mental health status and reduces the incidence of underweight. We also find considerable gender heterogeneity in the effects of mother's education. The results further indicate that mother's education leads to an increase in family resources for children and an improvement in maternal mental health and parenting, which we interpret as potential mechanisms behind our findings.     

Heterogeneous treatment effects and mechanisms in information-based environmental policies: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment

Policymakers often rely on non-pecuniary, information-based programs to achieve social objectives. Using data from a water conservation information campaign implemented as a randomized controlled trial, we estimate heterogeneous household responses. Understanding such heterogeneity is important for improving the cost-effectiveness of non-pecuniary programs, extending them to other populations and probing the mechanisms through which the treatment effects arise. We find little evidence of heterogeneous responses to purely technical information or to traditional conservation messages that combine technical information and moral suasion. In contrast, norm-based messages that combine technical information, moral suasion and social comparisons exhibit strong heterogeneity: households that are wealthier, owner-occupied and use more water are more responsive. These subgroups tend to be least responsive to pecuniary incentives. We find no evidence that any subgroup increases their water use in response to the messages. By targeting the messages to subgroups known to be most responsive, program costs could be reduced by over 50% with only a 20% reduction in the treatment effect. Combining theory and data, we also shed light on the mechanisms through which the treatment effects arise, which has implications for program design and future research on the program's welfare effects.     

中国货币化率与经济增长

近年来,中国高货币化率问题愈发严重,学者们专注于寻找其背后的原因,却忽略了对货币化率与经济增长关系的研究.为此,在对货币化率影响经济增长相关理论进行总结归纳基础上,提出货币化率与经济增长之间呈现倒U型关系的理论假设,并且选择全球72个主要国家1996—2018年面板数据,对货币化率与经济增长之间关系进行实证检验.结果表明:在全样本和发达国家子样本中,货币化率与经济增长之间呈现倒U型关系,目前我国货币化率水平小于全样本数据拐点值,大于发达国家子样本数据拐点值.发展中国家子样本数据则显示,货币化率与经济增长呈现正U型关系,适当提高货币化率可以促进经济增长.最后,根据上述结论,提出中国货币化率最优路径图.     

Regional variation in the capital structure adjustment speed of listed firms: Evidence from China

This paper investigates whether in China, a country large in size, geographically diverse and imbalanced in regional economic development, variation in firm capital structure¹ is systematically related to regional economic environment. In addition, we examine whether during macroeconomic recovery there is significant difference in the speed of adjustment in capital structure of firms located in different regions. The empirical analyses are based on 783 firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges during a sample period of year 2000 through 2014. Using GMM and Logit QMLE, we found strong evidence that the regional variation in the capital structure of listed firms is linked to growth indicator (the Market-to-Book value, MB), EBIT ratio, size of the firm and tangible assets (the value of Net Property, Plant and Equipment, PPE). In the process of economic recovery, there was apparent regional variation in the speed of adjustment in capital structure, i.e. the fastest adjustment in capital structure was found in East China while that of West China followed and that of Mid China the slowest, that is to say within a given period the leverage ratio of listed firms in East China rises or falls faster than in the other two regions.     

Unveiling the effects of a headscarf ban: Evidence from municipal jobs in Turkey

Religious conservatism is often associated with patriarchal attitudes and deterioration of women’s rights. This conventional wisdom has motivated ubiquitous policies that limit public expressions of religion and emphasize secular values. This paper demonstrates that a policy change which undermines secularity ends up empowering women. The current article takes advantage of a unique divergence in political institutions that occurred in Turkey’s recent history to explore how revoking a headscarf ban affected employment outcomes of women in the public sector. In a difference-in-discontinuities setting, I exploit the before/after discontinuous policy variation and compare female employment within municipalities that have Islamist and secular mayors. I find that eliminating legal obstacles against observant Muslim women in the labor market improves female employment in Islamist municipalities. Yet, when women are not allowed to wear headscarves to work, Islamist mayors employ less women vis-à-vis secular mayors. Overall, findings point to unintended consequences of headscarf bans on pious women.     

Cancer survivors in the labor market: Evidence from recent US micro-panel data

Rising cancer survival rates and retiring at older ages improve the probability of labor market presence for cancer survivors. Yet, insufficient evidence exists on the labor market effects of male- and female- specific cancers. Therefore, using a theoretical construct of labor supply and health capital, this study exploits a nationally representative dataset, the 2008–2015 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), for estimating the correlated random effects (CRE) and over-dispersion empirical models to capture the job market effects for cancer survivors. After addressing the potential endogeneity of cancer and controlling for the number of years after cancer diagnoses, the estimated CRE model detect substantial male-female differences in the labor market outcomes for the survivors. Male and female cancer types adversely affect short- and long- run employment prospects, and male-specific cancers increase weekly hours of work and decrease short- and long- run annual labor incomes. Moreover, gender-specific cancers increasingly limit long run family incomes and raise total health expenditures in the short- and intermediate- runs but not in the long-run. Additionally, while the cancers increase the likelihood of missing a work day for both genders in the short-run the effect is larger for females. Finally, the total annual cost of workplace absenteeism for the employed male- and female- cancer survivors range from $0.58bn to $3.1 bn.     

Systems valuing of natural capital and investment in extensive pastoral systems: Lessons from the Patagonian case

In Patagonian (Argentina) wool production systems, historical performance records, observed landscape changes, and long-term demographic modeling of sheep flocks, indicate that non-sustainable ecological and economic dynamics have developed during recent decades. In order to elucidate possible causes of these trends, a dynamic model of the wool production system including basic ecological and economic feedback mechanisms was applied to the analysis of alternative investment policies. The values of the various components (ewes, forage, soil) of natural capital (NC) involved in the production systems were estimated in this study through a systemic approach and their losses during wool production cycles were incorporated in their financial analysis. Our results indicate that external investment in increasing the ewe stocks (a common practice in these systems) is not sustainable in time unless a simultaneous external investment in forage NC is performed. More specifically, external investment to increase in 20% the ewe stocks would be expected to generate positive net cash flows during 6-8 years, if due account is taken from the losses of NC produced. Successive investments of the same sort would generate increasingly shorter periods of positive cash flows or even negative results after 15-25 years. Re-investment of a fraction of the net revenues obtained through wool sales in the reposition of forage resources also proves to be a non-sustainable policy. External investment on forage resources at about a 10:1 ratio with respect to investments in the ewe stock would produce positive net cash flows sustainable in time. It is concluded that sustainable investment policies in extensive range systems of Patagonia should consider the ecological-economic relations and feedbacks existing between forage consumption by ewes and ewe natality/soil erosion controls exerted by forage and market behavior. The structure of analysis of investment policies on extensive pastoral systems of the Patagonian Monte here proposed seems valuable to be extended to other regions with similar ecological-economic characteristics.     

Variation in the effects of government spending shocks with methods of financing: Evidence from the U.S.

Using annual data for the United States, the paper investigates the evidence of variation in the fiscal multiplier with the method of financing government spending. The fiscal multiplier varies in the face of positive and negative shocks and across methods of financing. In general, fiscal expansion appears insignificant on aggregate demand and economic activity. In contrast, the evidence presents a number of significant negative multipliers in the face of fiscal contraction. The combined evidence challenges the effectiveness of fiscal policy and supports arguments to restrain fiscal expansion in an effort to stimulate the economy.