Can individuals’ beliefs help us understand nonadherence to malaria test results? Evidence from rural Kenya

In malaria‐endemic countries about a quarter of test‐negative individuals take antimalarials (artemisinin‐based combination therapies [ACTs]). ACT overuse depletes scarce resources for subsidies and contributes to parasite resistance. As part of an experiment in Kenya that provided subsidies for rapid diagnostic test and/or for ACTs conditionally on being positive, we studied the association between beliefs on malaria status (prior and posterior the intervention) and decisions to get tested and to purchase ACTs. We find that prior beliefs do not explain the decision of getting tested (conditional on the price) and nonadherence to a negative test. However, test‐negative individuals who purchase ACTs report higher posterior beliefs than those who do not, consistent with a framework in which the formers revise beliefs upward, while the latters do not change or revise downward. We also do not find evidence that prior beliefs on ACT effectiveness and trust in test results play any major role in explaining testing or treatment behavior. Further research is needed to improve adherence to malaria‐negative test results.     

Covariate and Idiosyncratic Shocks and Coping Strategies for Poor and Non-poor Rural Households in India

The objective of the paper is to track the association between different type of shocks experienced by rural households and corresponding coping strategies opted by them as they are, not only exposed to household-level and community level shocks, but also, lack effective risk management strategies which make them vulnerable to get into chronic poverty. A probit analysis has been used to articulate the comparative static distinction of risk management strategies between poor and non poor rural households using Additional Rural Incomes Survey/Rural Economic and Demographic Survey (ARIS/REDS) data surveyed by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in rural India across 17 states to get a comparative static analysis. Households, generally, withdraw savings, seek remittances from migrant family members, take loan from formal and informal lenders and sell their existing assets and participate in Government sponsored welfare based programs to control after effect of shocks. Comparatively non-poor rural households could build up safety net (precautionary measure) to cope with price rise and other sudden shocks. But, extremely poor, generally, if don’t get help from relatives or can’t borrow from informal sources, ultimately starve at the time of sudden shocks. The welfare based government programs fail to arrest this extreme situation of grief during the idiosyncratic shocks.

     

全球性量化宽松意味着全球性长期通胀

【摩根士丹利7月3日】目前,许多国家的总体通胀率已陷入负区间,而全球经济才刚刚摆脱“大衰退”。在这种情况下担忧通胀风险,如果不说是荒唐,似乎至少也是为时过早。现在看来,大多数投资者并不担心通胀风险。事实上,根据市场数据推算,目前美国和欧元区的10年期通胀预期都不到2％,低于过去十年间的实际通胀率。但我们认为,市场对长期通胀风险过于乐观了;未来十年的通胀率看来更有可能大大超过、而非低于过去十年间的平均通胀率。     

An empirical comparison of consumer-based measures of brand equity

This article compares eleven different consumer-based brand equity measures and evaluates their convergence. Predictive validity at the individual and aggregate levels is also investigated. Measures based on the dollar metric method and discrete choice methodology predict choices extremely well in a simulated shopping environment, as well as purchase-intention and brand-quality scales.     

The currency risk factor in international equity pricing

Currency risk in the pricing of international equity returns is analyzed from an empirical viewpoint. The significance of the domestic market index, and the world index is also analyzed. The methodology is based on the Asymptotic Principal Components when an approximate factor structure is assumed. Monthly stock price returns for five countries are used. Thirty stocks are chosen from each country. Fifteen years of data is used. The U.S. Dollar is the numeraire. Exchange risk is generally not priced. The Domestic market index is always priced. The pricing of the World Index is mixed, i.e., it is priced in certain case and not in others.     

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.     

Trade liberalization and rising wage inequality in Latin America: Reconciliation with HOS theory

The paper puts forward the hypothesis that the transitory effects of trade liberalization on wage inequality can differ from the long-run outcome. In cases where the HOS theory predicts a decline in wage inequality in the long run, a temporary rise can, nevertheless, occur due to (i) the asymmetries in the speed of contraction in the import sector and expansion in other sectors, and (ii) the capital-skill complementarity in production. The asymmetric contraction and expansion causes a transitory capital accumulation that boosts the relative and the real wage of skilled labor due to capital-skill complementarity. Although the long-run HOS fundamentals are, therefore, dominated in the short run by the transient effects arising due to capital-skill complementarity, the observed rise in wage inequality is nonetheless consistent with the HOS theory appropriately extended to a dynamic setting.     

Bayesian estimation based on ranked set sample from Morgenstern type bivariate exponential distribution when ranking is imperfect

In this paper we consider Bayes estimation based on ranked set sample when ranking is imperfect, in which units are ranked based on measurements made on an easily and exactly measurable auxiliary variable X which is correlated with the study variable Y. Bayes estimators under squared error loss function and LINEX loss function for the mean of the study variate Y, when (X, Y) follows a Morgenstern type bivariate exponential distribution, are obtained based on both usual ranked set sample and extreme ranked set sample. Estimation procedures developed in this paper are illustrated using simulation studies and a real data.     

Concomitants of Record Values Arising from Morgenstern Type Bivariate Logistic Distribution and Some of their Applications in Parameter Estimation

In this paper we have obtained the joint probability density function of concomitants of two record values and hence obtained an explicit expression for the product moment of concomitants of two record values arising from Morgenstern family of distributions. Appling this expression for the product moments of concomitants of record values we have derived the best linear unbiased estimators based on concomitants of record values of some parameters involved in Morgenstern type bivariate logistic distribution which is a subfamily of the Morgenstern family of distributions. The efficiencies of these estimators based on the first n concomitants of record values for n≤10 are also obtained.