Perspectives on evaluation in financial education: Landscape,issues, and studies

This review discusses the heterogeneity in the effectiveness of financial education programs that occurs because of the unique conditions for programs and methods to evaluate them. The authors define six groups served by financial education: children, youth, college students and young adults, working adults, military personnel, and low-income consumers. They then discuss research and evaluation literature for each group with a critical eye on program purpose, content, and evaluation. They also present findings affecting multiple groups on four issues: student loans, homeownership, retirement planning, and financial advising. The accumulated evidence on the effectiveness of financial education is positive, although the results are nuanced and sometimes limited. The authors argue that understanding this broad landscape in studying financial education is critical for future research and evaluation.     

Polanyi’s ‘substantive approach’ to the economy in action? Conceptualising social enterprise as a public health ‘intervention’

For several decades now, critical public health researchers have highlighted the deleterious effects that pursuing neoliberal policies can have on the ‘causes of the causes’ of poor health and upon growing health inequalities. This paper argues that the conceptual tools of Karl Polanyi can help lend particular insight into this issue. The specific example that this paper focuses upon is the ‘social enterprise’: a form of organisation that combines both social and business objectives. The paper explores, conceptually, whether social enterprises may have the potential to act as one component of a neo-Polanyian countermovement: helping to re-embed the economy back into society, and offering greater recognition for a more comprehensive and socially imbued concept of health. Importantly, this potential is critically examined in the context of neoliberal hegemony, where challenges to the status quo have regularly been met with assimilation, co-option and/or repression.     

Controlling Episodic Air Pollution with a Seasonal Gas Tax: The Case of Cache Valley,Utah

Using daily data spanning 10 years, we establish a statistical relationship between episodic particulate-matter \((\hbox {PM}_{2.5})\) concentrations and vehicle trips in Cache Valley, Utah, and estimate an average gas-price elasticity for the region. We also estimate the benefits and costs associated with a seasonal gas tax set to reduce vehicle trips during the winter-inversion season and thereby lower health costs through concomitant decreases in the \(\hbox {PM}_{2.5}\) concentrations. We find a strong positive relationship between vehicle trips reduced and associated reductions in \(\hbox {PM}_{2.5}\) concentrations. Further, we estimate a mean gas price elasticity of approximately \(-\)0.3 in what we call a “high price variability environment.” Incorporating these results, cost-benefit analysis suggests that the social net benefit for Cache Valley associated with the imposition of a seasonal gas tax during the winter-inversion season is highly dependent upon the type of benefit estimation method used.     

Dynamic coordinating non-equilibrium

Neo-Walrasian conceptualizations and DSGE models are incompatible with the emergence of coordination and discoordination in economic activity. While many conceptualizations stemming from the Austrian tradition are generally consistent with these fundamental problems, their process driven approach is hampered by the use of equilibrium constructs. This paper argues for the adoption of formal models that avoid this problem by addressing the following questions. Why should Austrian macroeconomists model? Where do models fit in with respect to pure and applied theory? How to model without equilibrium? To answer this final question I present a structure that aids in the construction and communication of such models.     

John R. Commons and Government as Employer of Last Resort: Three Paths to a Progressive Right to Work

Abstract:

Today in the United States, a number of congressional Democrats endorse proposals that would establish a job guarantee for all Americans seeking work. Arguments for such a policy can be traced back at least to the work of John R. Commons, one of the first institutional economists. This article demonstrates that there are actually three arguments in Commons’s scholarship that provide a case for government to hire the unemployed by serving as employer of last resort. These arguments, each highlighted at a different point in Commons’s career, can be viewed in turn as legal, financial, and historical paths to public provision of work for the jobless—government employment that Commons considered part of “the right to work.” The article traces each path, highlighting insight that remains relevant and calling for greater attention to Common’s writings as a way to reclaim the right to work as a progressive cause.     

Projecting total costs and health consequences of increasing mt-sDNA utilization for colorectal cancer screening from the payer and integrated delivery network perspectives

Abstract

Aims: To evaluate total costs and health consequences of a colorectal cancer (CRC) screening program with colonoscopy, fecal immunochemical tests (FIT), and expanded use of multitarget stool DNA (mt-sDNA) from the perspectives of Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) and payers in the United States.

Materials and methods: We developed a budget impact and cost-consequence model that simulates CRC screening for eligible 50- to 75-year-old adults. A status quo scenario and an increased mt-sDNA scenario were modeled. The status quo includes the current screening mix of colonoscopy (83%), FIT (11%), and mt-sDNA (6%) modalities. The increased mt-sDNA scenario increases mt-sDNA utilization to 28% over 10 years. Costs for both the IDN and the payer perspectives incorporated diagnostic and surveillance colonoscopies, adverse events (AEs), and CRC treatment. The IDN perspective included screening program costs, composed of direct nonmedical (e.g. patient navigation) and indirect (e.g. administration) costs. It was assumed that IDNs do not incur the costs for stool-based screening tests or bowel preparation for colonoscopies.

Results: In a population of one million covered lives, the 10-year incremental cost savings incurred by increasing mt-sDNA utilization was $16.2 M for the IDN and $3.3 M for the payer. The incremental savings per-person-per-month were $0.14 and $0.03 for the IDN and payer, respectively. For both perspectives, increased diagnostic colonoscopy costs were offset by reductions in screening colonoscopies, surveillance colonoscopies, and AEs. Extending screening eligibility to 45- to 75-year-olds slightly decreased the overall cost savings.

Limitations: The natural history of CRC was not simulated; however, many of the utilized parameters were extracted from highly vetted natural history models or published literature. Direct nonmedical and indirect costs for CRC screening programs are applied on a per-person-per modality basis, whereas in reality some of these costs may be fixed.

Conclusions: Increased mt-sDNA utilization leads to fewer colonoscopies, less AEs, and lower overall costs for both IDNs and payers, reducing overall screening program costs and increasing the number of cancers detected while maintaining screening adherence rates over 10 years.     

A quasi-maximum likelihood method for estimating the parameters of multivariate diffusions

A quasi-maximum likelihood procedure for estimating the parameters of multi-dimensional diffusions is developed in which the transitional density is a multivariate Gaussian density with first and second moments approximating the true moments of the unknown density. For affine drift and diffusion functions, the moments are exactly those of the true transitional density and for nonlinear drift and diffusion functions the approximation is extremely good and is as effective as alternative methods based on likelihood approximations. The estimation procedure generalises to models with latent factors. A conditioning procedure is developed that allows parameter estimation in the absence of proxies.     

Maximum likelihood estimation of seemingly unrelated stochastic frontier regressions

This paper explores the changes in value added (VA) of a sample of schools for cohorts of students finishing secondary education between 2005 and 2008. VA estimates are based on distance measures obtained from DEA models. These measures are computed for each pupil in each school, and evaluate the distance between the school frontier in a given year and a pooled frontier comprising all schools analysed. The school VA is then computed by aggregating the VA scores for the cohort of pupils attending that school in a given year. The ratio between VA estimates for two consecutive cohorts, that attended the school in different years, is taken as the index of VA change. However, the evolution of school performance over time should consider not only the movements of the school frontier, but should also take into account other effects, such as the proximity of the students to the best-practices, represented by the school frontier, observed over time. For that purpose we developed an enhanced Malmquist index to evaluate the evolution of school performance over time. One of the components of the Malmquist index proposed measures VA change, and the other measures the ability of all school students to move closer to their own school best practices over time. The approach developed is applied to a sample of Portuguese secondary schools.