Food for thought: the birth-order effect and resource allocation in Indonesia

Despite the large literature linking birth order to socio-economic outcomes, research uncovering the mechanisms that drive these effects has been rare. We construct a unique measure of nutritional variety to examine whether differential resource allocation among siblings explains the birth-order effect on cognitive ability. We document birth-order differences among children and young adults, showing that second and third borns perform worse on cognitive assessments compared to their firstborn siblings. We find further evidence suggesting that second- and third-born children frequently eat a smaller variety of food than their first-born counterparts. However, this differentiation in food allocation does not appear to drive the differences in cognitive ability in our sample. To our knowledge, this article is the first both to confirm the presence of a birth-order effect on cognition in a developing country and to test empirically whether a difference in food allocation contributes to this effect.     

Ascertaining the effects of employee bonus plans

The effect of employee bonus plans may be difficult to ascertain empirically if the size of bonus is not large enough in magnitude compared to base salary. This study makes use of data from Taiwan where employee bonus payments are not only mandated by law but are quite often several times a typical employee's annual base salary. The use of this unique data allows one to empirically observe interesting relationships difficult to ascertain from traditional datasets. Evidence is found that the performance of bonus-paying firms is related to the size of bonuses paid, both before and after analysis, and across industries. In general, evidence seems to indicate that bonus-paying firms tend to achieve higher productivity, better cost control and asset utilization, and share price returns. However, there may be evidence that marginal returns to employee bonuses are decreasing, reflecting the use of bonuses as substitutes for cash pay in order to attract employees in short supply. These results can serve as useful benchmarks for future studies.     

乡镇政府问责制度安排

自2003年因SARS风暴引起的政府问责事件以来,在政治社会生活中,对政府问责的制度设计和制度实践渐趋成形,但由于以造成严重损害后果为导向的、党政系统内的同体问责制度设计不当,从而限制了政府问责制度应有的功能。这种狭义上的政府问责制度,同样规范和制约着乡镇政府问责,乡镇政府作为我国政府层级体系中的最基层组织,与农民有着最为紧密的联系,其主要职责是对农村公共事务的管理。探索建立科学、合理、全面的乡镇政府问责制度,不仅为乡镇政府职权的规范行使,满足农民的利益诉求,提供切实保障;同时也为与此相关的基层民主政治建设,提供制度支持。     

Electoral accountability and tax mimicking: the effects of electoral margins, coalition government, and ideology

This paper investigates the relation between tax mimicking and electoral accountability against the background of data on Spain. The results confirm the presence of tax-mimicking behaviour and indicate a relation between tax mimicking and electoral accountability. Tax rates are found to be higher and the reaction to neighbours' tax rates lower when the electoral margin is high and when left-wing parties control government. Coalition governments do not tax heavily and mimic more than single party majority governments.     

Grain inflation: Identifying agent discretion in response to a conditional school nutrition program

Many incentive programs rely on local agents with significant discretion to allocate benefits. We estimate the degree of discretion exercised by teachers within a conditional transfer program designed to improve nutrition and encourage student attendance in Mumbai, India. The program allocates grain to students every month their attendance exceeds 80% , creating an incentive for teachers to inflate attendance to benefit certain students. We find that teachers manipulate students' records, altering the incentives to attend school. The teachers' response also varies across students. Teachers inflate more for girls, better students, and students from lower castes, but less for Muslim students.     

浅论网络时代中学思想道德教育的变化

2004年,中共中央、国务院颁发了《关于进一步加强和改进未成年人思想道德建设的若干意见》,对网络传播条件下的中学生思想道德教育给予了高度关注。因此,用正确、积极、健康的思想文化占领网络阵地,加强对中学生的网络道德教育,已成为中学思想政治教育工作中重要而又紧迫的任务。在网络飞速发展的时代,中学思想道德教育必须紧随形势变化的需要适时调整,必须采取积极措施,让网络在中学生思想道德教育中发挥积极的作用.     

Child welfare programs and child nutrition: Evidence from a mandated school meal program in India

Utilizing the data I collected on a nationally mandated school meal program in India, I examine the extent to which children benefit from the targeted public transfer. Relying upon built-in randomness in whether a child's 24-hour food consumption recall was for a school or non-school day, I find that the daily nutrient intake of program participants increased substantially by 49% to 100% of the transfers. The results are robust to the potential endogeneity of program placement and individual participation. The findings suggest that for as low a cost as 3 cents per child per school day the scheme reduced the daily protein deficiency of a primary school student by 100%, the calorie deficiency by almost 30% and the daily iron deficiency by nearly 10%. At least in the short-run, therefore, the program had a substantial effect on reducing hunger at school and protein-energy malnutrition.     

A review of dental plans: PPOs and referral plans to dominate future

This important benefit has changed greatly in the last 20 years. Double-digit health care cost increases in the late 1980s caused indemnity plans to evolve into network plans, such as dental HMOs and PPOs. PPOs and referral or access plans now seem to be the plans of choice.     

Education and saving:: The long-term effects of high school financial curriculum mandates

Over the last 40 years, a majority of states have adopted consumer education policies, and a sizable minority have mandated that high school students receive instruction on topics related to household financial decision-making. In this paper, we attempt to determine whether these mandates have had any effect on subsequent decisions. We exploit the variation in requirements both across states and over time to identify the effects of interest. The evidence indicates that mandates have raised both exposure to financial curricula and subsequent asset accumulation once exposed students reached adulthood. The estimated effects are gradual, probably due to implementation lags.     

企业社会责任缺失谁之过?

调查显示，公众认为导致企业缺乏社会责任的第一责任人是相关政府部门，企业只是第二责任人[编者按]     

Public spending and growth: The role of government accountability

This paper examines the role of institutions in the nexus between public spending and economic growth. Empirical results based on a newly assembled dataset of 80 countries over the 1970–2010 period suggest that particularly when institutions prompt governments to be accountable to the general citizen does public capital spending promote growth. Taking account of the type of financing for this spending, we show that the growth-promoting effect under an accountable government appears to prevail for various financing sources, including a reallocation from current spending, an increase in revenue, and a rise in the budget deficit. However, government accountability does not seem to play a key role in the growth effects of current spending.     

新农村建设思想研究

新农村建设思想研究是近来新农村建设理论研究的热点之一,其研究的内容纷繁复杂.对新农村建设思想研究的内涵、本质和内容的考察显示,新农村建设思想有个体和群体、广义和狭义之分;同时它是一种实践性认识,决定了它的结构及其评价和检验方式.新农村建设思想研究的内容总的来说有两大体系,即哲学体系和实践体系.观念上的这种区分能使研究的内容更加集中和突出,研究方法更加科学合理.     

Class-size effects in school systems around the world: Evidence from between-grade variation in TIMSS

We estimate the effect of class size on student performance in 11 countries, combining school fixed effects and instrumental variables to identify random class-size variation between two adjacent grades within individual schools. Conventional estimates of class-size effects are shown to be severely biased by the non-random placement of students between and within schools. While we find sizable beneficial effects of smaller classes in Greece and Iceland, we reject the possibility of even small effects in four countries and of large beneficial effects in an additional four countries. Noteworthy class-size effects are observed only in countries with relatively low teacher salaries.     

环境壁垒对我国食品出口的影响——基于农产品食品安全的视角

本文利用外部经济理论和信息不对称理论对国际贸易中环境壁垒产生的原因进行分析;分析了环境壁垒对中国农产品出口的影响:农产品食品安全问题成为制约我国食品出口的主要原因;环保意识的增强使消费者对食品安全及环境指标的要求越来越严格;贸易保护主义影响我国农产品出口.提出了积极推进标准化认证,转变生产模式及观念,及时掌握国外新的法律法规等中国农产品突破国外环境壁垒的对策.     

The legacy of the past: ancient economic thought on wealth and development

Ancient economic thought was in general hostile to enrichment and saw wealth as inner wealth. This attitude was coherent with an economy mainly closed and static, based on agriculture and on slave work. But also it greatly contributed to restrain economic development in ancient societies. Ancient economic thought had an enormous influence on early modern thought. The latter borrowed its hostility from enrichment, which contradicted the real tendency of the new society. Thus, from the beginning, modern economy could not enjoy the support of a high economic theory. It could not legitimate enrichment and the increase in consumption.     

Characterization of optimal plans for stochastic dynamic programs

This paper provides general techniques for the characterization of optimal plans resulting from stochastic dynamic programming. We show that under standard assumptions the optimal plans in both finite and infinite horizon problems can be obtained by an application of the Implicit Function Theorem to first order conditions. Further, we show that under certain checkable conditions, optimal plans and value functions are p-times differentiable for any integer p ? 0. Finally, we apply our technique to obtain a C^p plan and value function in a one sector infinite horizon growth problem under uncertainty.