The Effect of Attending a Small Class in the Early Grades on College-test Taking and Middle School Test Results: Evidence from Project Star

This paper provides a long-term follow-up analysis of students who participated in the Tennessee STAR experiment. In this experiment, students and their teachers were randomly assigned to small, regular-size, or regular-size classes with a teacher aide in the first four years of school. We analyse the effect of past attendance in small classes on student test scores and whether they took the ACT or SAT college entrance exam. Attending a small class in the early grades is associated with an increased likelihood of taking a college-entrance exam, especially among minority students, and somewhat higher test scores.     

Must conditional cash transfer programs be conditioned to be effective? The impact of conditioning transfers on school enrollment in Mexico

A growing body of evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs can have strong, positive effects on a range of welfare indicators for poor households in developing countries. However, there is little evidence about how important each component of these programs is towards achieving these outcomes. This paper tests the importance of conditionality on one specific outcome related to human capital formation, school enrollment, using data collected during the evaluation of Mexico's PROGRESA program. We exploit the fact that some beneficiaries who received transfers did not receive the forms needed to monitor the attendance of their children at school. We use a variety of techniques, including nearest neighbor matching and household fixed effects regressions, to show that the absence of these forms reduced the likelihood that children attended school with this effect most pronounced when children are transitioning to lower secondary school. We provide substantial evidence that these findings are not driven by unobservable characteristics of households or localities.     

Private Insurance Company Involvement in the U.S. Crop Insurance Program

The participation of intermediaries in either public policy or private markets can be justified on the basis of efficiency gains. With respect to private insurance companies and the crop insurance program, efficiency gains may arise from either decreased transaction costs through better established delivery channels and/or the revelation of asymmetric information. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that delivery costs are excessive and it appears that for political economy reasons, rates have and will not be adjusted in response to new information. In conclusion, the value-added of private insurance companies is questioned in light of the current political economy and thus should serve as a caution to other countries wishing to emulate the U.S. system.     

Black and white female body mass index values in the developing late 19th and early 20th century United States

When traditional measures for economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, stature and the body mass index (BMI) are now widely-used measures that reflect economic conditions. However, little work exists for late 19th and early 20th century women’s BMIs in the US and how they varied over time. Women’s BMIs stagnated throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After controlling for characteristics, African-American women had higher BMIs than lighter complexioned mixed-race and white women. Women from the Southwest were taller and had lower BMIs than women born elsewhere within the US. Alternatively, women’s BMIs did not vary by socioeconomic status.