Enrolment and Delayed Enrolment of Secondary School Age Children in Indonesia

We analyse the school participation decision of children between 13 and 18 years in Indonesia using the 1992 SUSENAS household survey. Our focus is on which household factors determine enrolment and delayed enrolment. We use the multinomial fixed effect model where the cluster-specific fixed effects correct for any regional-specific factors that may influence the demand for education. The model is estimated by conditional maximum likelihood. We find that parent's education has a positive effect on enrolment, where the effects are stronger for boys than for girls. On the other hand, literacy of parents has stronger effects on the girls education than on the boys'. The model without fixed effects is rejected against the model with fixed effects. Hence, omitting regional variation in the model would have led to biased estimates.     

The Bolivian Social Investment Fund: An Analysis of Baseline Data for Impact Evaluation

The Bolivian Social Investment Fund (SIF) is a financial institutionthat promotes sustainable investments in the social sectors,principally in the areas of health, education, and sanitation.This article shows how to use preintervention data collectedfor evaluating the SIF to improve the targeting of a program,to test the quality of the evaluation design, and to definecorrective measures if necessary. It finds that among SIF interventionsthe benefits in education are distributed relatively equallyover the population, while the investments in health and sanitationfavor better-off communities. The article contributes to the methods used to evaluate socialinvestment funds and similar programs. It compares two typesof evaluation designs to assess social investment fund interventionsin the education sector. The authors demonstrate that a simplematched-comparison design introduces a bias in the estimateof the program effect, whereas an experimental design basedon random assignment does not. With preintervention data, theanalyst can select a quasi or indirect experiment, where thechoice of the indirect experiment coincides with the selectionof valid instrumental variables. The availability of preinterventiondata makes it possible to compare the two types of evaluationdesigns as well as to test the validity of the instruments andto determine the loss of efficiency due to the use of quasi-experimentaltechniques instead of random treatment assignment.     

Did the Health Card Program Ensure Access to Medical Care for the Poor during Indonesia's Economic Crisis?

The Indonesian Social Safety Net health card program was implementedin response to the economic crisis that hit Indonesia in 1997,to preserve access to health care services for the poor. Healthcards were allocated to poor households, entitling them to subsidizedcare from public health care providers. The providers receivedbudgetary support to compensate for the extra demand. This articlefocuses on the effect of the program on primary outpatient healthcare use, disentangling the direct effect of allocating healthcards from the indirect effect of government transfers to healthcare facilities. For poor health card owners the program resultedin a net increase in use of outpatient care, while for nonpoorhealth card owners the program resulted mainly in a substitutionfrom private to public health care. The largest effect of theprogram seems to have come from a general increase in the supplyof public services resulting from the budgetary support to publicproviders. These benefits seem to have been captured mainlyby the nonpoor. As a result, most of the benefits of the healthcard program went to the nonpoor, even though distribution ofthe health cards was propoor. The results suggest that had theprogram, in addition to targeting the poor, established a closerlink between provision of services to the target groups andfunding, the overall results would have been more propoor.     

Technology legitimation in the public discourse: applying the pillars of legitimacy on GM food

ABSTRACT

The public sphere, reflected by the public discourse, is an important domain for the legitimation of technology. In the institutional literature, four pillars of legitimacy are distinguished: normative, cognitive, regulative, and pragmatic. The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent these pillars can be used as a framework for analysing the legitimation of technological innovations in the public discourse. We conducted a qualitative media analysis of the case of GM food in the Netherlands, analysing 287 articles from nine Dutch newspapers in the period of 1996–2016. The results show that the pillars provide insight into legitimacy in a multi-dimensional way and serve as a structure for the dynamics of legitimation processes. Regarding GM food, the public debate was pre-dominantly negative, with a strong focus on the normative pillar. Emotional rhetoric exceeded knowledge and understanding (cognitive pillar) of GM food. The regulative and pragmatic pillars were hardly addressed.     

Valuation differences between quoted and unquoted companies- empirical evidence from the UK

This paper focuses upon differences in the valuation of UK quoted and unquoted companies. It draws on empirical evidence over the period from 1991 to 1997. It commences with an overview of the published literature. This suggests a broad spectrum of valuation statistics ranging from very minor discounts for non-listed companies relative to their quoted brethren, up to a discount as high as 40%. The empirical analysis uses PE ratios, derived from the publication Acquisitions Monthly, in respect of non-listed, private companies selling out in takeover deals. These are compared with average PE ratios for quoted companies in Britain. A raw statistic of approximately 40% was found as the discount for non-listed firms relative to quoted companies. However, this is dramatically different when corrected for size. For size varying from less than GBP 0.5 million to about GBP 55 million, the discount ranges, respectively, from 16% to 6% with an average of around 10%. Regression equations relating size and PE ratio are presented.     

The congruence of actual and perceived person–organization fit

Person–organization fit (P–O fit) is an important and often-researched variable, which sheds light on the way employees perceive their relationship with the organization they work for. In this study, two different assessments of P–O fit are compared, i.e. actual fit (an indirect measurement based on the comparison of organizational and personal values or characteristics) and perceived fit (a direct measurement involving employees' own estimations of their P–O fit). The four quadrants of the Competing Values Framework (CVF) are used to investigate which values have the strongest influence on employees' fit perceptions. In a polynomial regression analysis, the predictive power of the indirect fit measure on the direct fit measure is tested in a sample of two organizations (hospital n1 = 222; chemical plant n2 = 550). The results show that of the four CVF quadrants human relations values have the strongest predictive power for employees' fit perceptions and rational goal values contribute least. In the discussion section, special attention will be paid to the measurement of individual values as the results raise important methodological questions.     

An Impact Evaluation of Education, Health, and Water Supply Investments by the Bolivian Social Investment Fund

This article reviews the results of an impact evaluation ofsmall-scale rural infrastructure projects in health, water,and education financed by the Bolivian Social Investment Fund.The impact evaluation used panel data on project beneficiariesand control or comparison groups and applied several evaluationmethodologies. An experimental design based on randomizationof the offer to participate in a social fund project was successfulin estimating impact when combined with bounds estimates toaddress noncompliance issues. Propensity score matching wasapplied to baseline data to reduce observable preprogram differencesbetween treatment and comparison groups. Results for educationprojects suggest that although they improved school infrastructure,they had little impact on education outcomes. In contrast, interventionsin health clinics, perhaps because they went beyond simply improvinginfrastructure, raised utilization rates and were associatedwith substantial declines in under-age-five mortality. Investmentsin small community water systems had no major impact on waterquality until combined with community-level training, thoughthey did increase the access to and the quantity of water. Thisincrease in quantity appears to have been sufficient to generatedeclines in under-age-five mortality similar in size to thoseassociated with the health interventions.     

Eating like which “Joneses?” an Iterative Solution to the Choice of a Poverty Line “Reference Group”

A standard method for calculating poverty lines (e.g. Ravallion, 1994) is not fully specified. The choice of the "reference population" for determining food baskets is left to the decision of the individual analyst. However, the poverty line can be quite sensitive to the real income of the reference group because the "quality" of the food basket—measured as the food expenditures per calorie—rises sharply with income. We propose that the reference group be centered on the poverty line. To address the obvious circularity problem in choosing a reference population at the poverty line to define the poverty line, we use an iterative approach. This iterative method provides a methodological anchor that fixes the reference group.     

Healthcare resource utilization in patients receiving idarucizumab for reversal of dabigatran anticoagulation due to major bleeding,urgent surgery,or procedural interventions: interim results from the RE-VERSE AD™ study

Aims: Patients treated with anticoagulants may experience serious bleeding or require urgent surgery or intervention, and may benefit from rapid anticoagulant reversal. This exploratory analysis assessed healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) in patients treated with idarucizumab, a specific reversal agent for dabigatran etexilate.

Materials and methods: RE-VERSE AD? (NCT02104947), a prospective, multi-center open-label study, is evaluating idarucizumab for dabigatran reversal in patients with serious bleeding (Group A) or undergoing emergency surgery/procedures (Group B). HCRU outcome measures evaluated in the first 90 patients enrolled were use of blood products and pro-hemostatic agents, length of stay (LOS) in hospital, and LOS in intensive care unit (ICU).

Results: Blood products or pro-hemostatic agents were given to 63% (32/51) of patients in Group A and 23% (9/39) of patients in Group B on the day of/day after surgery. An overnight hospital stay was reported for 82% (42/51) of patients in Group A with median LOS?=?7 (range?=?1–71) bed-days. For Group B, 92% (36/39) had an overnight hospital stay with a median LOS?=?9 (range?=?1–92) bed-days. In Group A, 17 patients were admitted to the ICU for at least 1?day with median LOS?=?4 (range?=?1–44) days; in Group B the number was 15 with median LOS?=?2 (range?=?1–92) days.

Limitations: The lack of a control group and the small patient numbers limit the strength of the conclusions.

Conclusions: The use of idarucizumab may simplify emergency management of dabigatran-treated patients with life-threatening bleeds and reduce perioperative complications in patients undergoing emergency surgery.     

The Impact and Targeting of Social Infrastructure Investments: Lessons from the Nicaraguan Social Fund

The benefit incidence and impact of projects financed by theNicaraguan Emergency Social Investment Fund are investigatedusing a sample of beneficiaries, a national household survey,and two distinct comparison groups. The first group is constructedon the basis of geographic proximity between similar facilitiesand their corresponding communities; the second is drawn fromthe national Living Standards Measurement Study survey sampleusing propensity score matching techniques. The analysis findsthat the social fund investments in latrines, schools, and healthposts are targeted to poor communities and households, whereasthose in sewerage are targeted to the better-off. Investmentsin water systems are poverty-neutral. Education investmentshave a positive, significant impact on school outcomes regardlessof the comparison group used. The results of health investmentsare less clear. Using one comparison group, the analysis findsthat use of health clinics increased as a result of the investments;using both, it finds higher use of clinics for children underage six with diarrhea. With neither comparison group does itfind improvements in health outcomes. Social fund investmentsin water and sanitation improve access to services but haveno effect on health outcomes.