Does a college education cause better health and health behaviours?

In this article, we exploit the recent higher education expansion in China to apply a regression discontinuity method to identify the causal effects of higher education on health and health behaviours. We do not find causal effect of a college education on better smoking and drinking behaviours. For our selected measures of health, we do not find causal effect of a college education on better self-assessed health, less chance of having illness in the past 3 months and keeping normal body weight; however, we find that a college education could significantly reduce the probability of having hypertension.     

Premium subsidies and demand for private health insurance: results from a regression discontinuity design

This article investigates the impact of a private health insurance (PHI) subsidy on the demand for PHI in the context of the Australian health care system. In particular, we focus on the subpopulation of elderly Australians and exploit discontinuous increases to the universal ‘PHI rebate’ that occur when people turn 65 and 70 years. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find the policy has little effect on take-up of PHI and is best interpreted as a wealth transfer to elderly Australians who already have insurance.     

Aging faster in office? the effect of extended service in political office on longevity

Politicians’ health problems are often publicly related to occupational stress. We investigate the effect of serving longer time in office on US governors’ life expectancy. Results indicate that health problems are relevant for the decision to continue a political career. We find no evidence that serving longer in political office is detrimental to health.     

Does microcredit increase borrowers’ savings? A fuzzy regression discontinuity design approach

Microcredit has expanded rapidly in recent years but its effect at the household level is still controversial. This paper uses a unique data-set collected from 69 villages in Bangladesh to estimate the effect of participation in microcredit programs on household savings. A regression discontinuity design (RDD) is used to identify the credit effect. To justify the validity of RDD, we test the discontinuities in the conditional density of the forcing variable (in our case, household land), as suggested by McCrary. We do not find any substantial evidence of manipulation of forcing variable at the threshold to invalidate the RDD. Our results show that access to credit increases savings of the borrowers.     

Impact of microcredit on borrowers’ expenditures: a fuzzy regression discontinuity design approach

This article uses the data from 69 villages in Bangladesh to estimate the effect of participation in microcredit programmes on household expenditures. A regression discontinuity design (RDD) is used to identify the credit effect. Our results show heterogeneous treatment effect on different types of expenditures. We show that access to credit reduces per capita expenditure on durable goods such as kitchen equipment, furniture, repair and maintenance of house and increases the expenditure on per school-going child. We also show insignificant impact of access to credit on non-durable goods and health care, recreation and gifts. Interestingly, our results indicate a positive impact of microcredit on village-level expenditures.     

DO PRIVATE TUTORS ENHANCE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ABILITY? REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY EVIDENCE FROM A POLICY EXPERIMENT IN INDIA

Empirical evidence has shown that returns to English language ability are substantial in India. Research has also focused on the impact of private tutoring in the context of developing economies to find evidence that remedial teaching leads to better student achievement and higher test scores. In this paper I analyze whether private tutoring helps in developing English language ability. Simple OLS estimates suggest statistically significant effects but estimated coefficients are rather small at 0.2 percentage points. Presence of confounders and selection bias may potentially understate the true effects of private tutoring on English language ability. To address this issue, I exploit a unique policy experiment in India in a regression discontinuity framework to identify cohorts eligible for private tutoring and compare their outcomes to the ineligible. I use this potentially exogenous policy variation as an instrument for private tutoring and find significant increases in English language ability estimated at 16 percentage points which is much larger than the simple OLS effects. Since standard academic curriculum is not directed towards improving foreign language ability, private tutoring as an input in the education production function seems to offer high marginal returns. From a policy perspective, this implies that private tutoring should be encouraged for enhancing English ability even though there are concerns that this provides disincentives for teachers to teach in school.     

新农保养老金政策效果评估——基于老年人生活幸福感的实证研究

作为一项重要的社会保障政策,新农保养老金的效果到底如何,目前学术界还没有统一的评估结论。本文基于2016年中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）数据,使用断点回归设计的方法,利用老年人幸福感指标对新型农村社会养老保险的政策效果进行了评估。本文从老年人对生活的满意度和自信心两个维度来衡量幸福感,发现领取养老金对其生活满意度的影响尚不显著,但提升了其对未来生活的信心。异质性分析发现东部地区和中高收入地位的老年人在领取新农保养老金后生活幸福感提升较为显著,但现实中挤出效应的影响更大。最后,作为社会支持的新农保与传统的“养儿防老”观念存在一定的替代效应。     

基于教育网络的上海城市网络空间结构研究

利用2016年上海市教育机构的相关数据,运用连锁网络模型、社会网络分析方法以及ArcGIS空间分析方法测度了上海城市网络的空间结构特征。研究发现:①整个网络具有较强的集聚性,节点中心性空间分异显著,呈现出小世界效应的特征。②网络层级鲜明,五角场街道、徐家汇街道为上海教育网络的集聚中心,处于城市网络的最高层级。整个城市网络呈现四边形架构的空间格局,五角场街道-徐家汇街道-张江镇-江川路街道为网络的核心架构顶点。③通过QAP回归分析发现,人口因素、地理距离、交通通达性、产业集聚、名牌效应以及商务经济发展水平是上海城市网络形成的重要影响因素,对城市教育网络的扩展具有促进作用。     

The chosen fortunate in the urbanization process in China? Evidence from a geographic regression discontinuity study

After decades of delayed urbanization, since 1998, China has implemented the “county‐to‐district” policy to promote urbanization and stimulate regional economic development. This policy was designed to expand the urban area of large cities by merging counties (rural areas) with nearby cities (urban areas). Intuitively, these regions are the “chosen fortunate” since they are the privileged beneficiaries of this policy experiment. However, at the time of writing (2018), recent studies have been inconsistent regarding this issue, and several studies have revealed that this policy has impeded regional growth. Therefore, the true effect of this policy must be carefully examined. Using grid‐level nighttime light data and a border‐based regression discontinuity design framework, we find that the average effect of the “county‐to‐district” policy on nighttime light growth is significant and positive, and this result also coincides with the increase of entry and decrease of exit of manufacturing enterprises, and the increase of the county‐level manufacturing employment. However, the policy effect on nighttime light turns to be negative in the long run, implying that short‐term economic growth may outweigh the long‐term economic growth potential. A further investigation of the underlying mechanism indicates that industrial enterprises in the experimental policy area do not perform better in terms of total factor productivity (TFP) and profit margin than their counterparts. Moreover, this policy aggravates the polarization between central and border areas.     

My Choice: Women’s Contraceptive-Use Autonomy in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Using a nationally representative household survey for two cohorts of married women, this study examines women’s contraceptive-use autonomy (CUA) incidence and correlates in Bangladesh, focusing on the role of education. Previous research has examined the incidence and correlates of contraceptive use and of several dimensions of female autonomy but only rarely the intersection of the two – that is, CUA. This study finds that women from the younger cohort are far more likely to have complete autonomy over contraceptive use than women from the older cohort. Detailed decompositions reveal that the improvement in education across cohorts is the main correlate of the improved generational CUA gap. Health knowledge, especially knowledge that the use of condoms can help avoid contracting HIV/AIDS, is part of the transmission mechanism between women’s education and women’s CUA but also exerts an additional influence on CUA.