ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)最新文献

{"title":"Does Who You Know Matter? Unraveling the Influence of Student Networks on Academic Performance","authors":"Tarun Jain, Nishtha Langer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2425477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2425477","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the impact of students' network size, distance, prestige and connections to influential individuals on academic performance. Larger and closer networks facilitate information exchange, but may also increase distractions that decrease productivity. To resolve this ambiguity, we use administrative data from a business school setting that features both randomly assignment of students to multiple overlapping sets of peers, allowing us to calculate degree, closeness, eigenvector and Katz-Bonacich centrality for each node, as well as a cleanly defined measure of academic achievement. We find that increasing eigenvector centrality within the network has a negative effect on student performance as measured by grade point average, suggesting that synergy reduction and information processing costs outweigh benefits from greater information access.","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"95 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122309623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Status of Electricity Consumption of West Bengal: A Decomposition Analysis","authors":"Gopal K. Ghosh, M. Dutta","doi":"10.3233/RED-131205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3233/RED-131205","url":null,"abstract":"As one of the major sources of energy, electricity plays a crucial role in all sectors of an economy; yet consumption of electricity leads to emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which in turn causes climate change. Energy, and more specifically electricity, consumption, has been growing rapidly and is expected to continue to grow in a number of states in India. In this context, it is important to see how an initiative to reduce energy consumption can be taken at the state level. In this context, the present study focuses on the state of West Bengal. To design appropriate energy efficiency policies, understanding the causal factors of increasing electricity demand is important. Decomposition analysis helps us to identify these factors and design a policy towards an energy-efficient and low-carbon future. This article reviews electricity consumption by individual sectors (agriculture, industry, transport, and commerce) to determine appropriate energy efficiency policies for the future.","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127052850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"External and Internal Validity of a Geographic Quasi-Experiment Embedded in a Cluster-Randomized Experiment","authors":"Sebastian Galiani, Patrick J. McEwan, B. Quistorff","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2812690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2812690","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes a geographic quasi-experiment embedded in a cluster-randomized experiment in Honduras. In the experiment, average treatment effects on school enrollment and child labor were large—especially in the poorest blocks—and could be generalized to a policy-relevant population given the original sample selection criteria. In contrast, the geographic quasi-experiment yielded point estimates that, for two of three dependent variables, were attenuated. A judicious policy analyst without access to the experimental results might have provided misleading advice based on the magnitude of point estimates. We assessed two main explanations for the difference in point estimates, related to external and internal validity.","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116852066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Can a Specially Designed Information Intervention Around the Wash-Agriculture Linkages Make Any Difference? Experimental Evidence of Behavioral Changes and Health Impacts","authors":"M. A. Malek, Tahsina Khan, Nicolas Gerber, R. Saha, I. Mohammad","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2771018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2771018","url":null,"abstract":"This paper attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of the specially designed packages of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions with ‘student brigades’ (student teams tasked with maintaining hygiene in school) on household WASH behavior and practices in both a household and farm setting. In addition, household members’ health and developmental productivity outcomes were also examined. A randomized control trial (RCT) involving student brigades (SBs) was carried out in six sub-districts (hotspots) characterized by comparatively poor WASH indicators. The specially designed WASH-agriculture treatment consisted of three interventions: (1) informing the households about the prior water testing results; (2) delivering hygiene messages with the help of posters; (3) equipping SB members with water quality test kits and asking them to test the water quality at different places and report their findings to their household. Employing the difference-in-difference (DID) multivariate regression technique, the analysis revealed that the BRAC WASH treatment performed well in terms of effecting behavioral changes and improving hygiene practices. In addition, the results suggested that informing households of their drinking water quality and conveying WASH-agriculture hygiene messages to them could have a significant incremental impact over the existing BRAC WASH treatment in changing household hygiene behavior and practices at home and on farms. This research provides evidence that students can act as agents of change in improving water quality, sanitation and health in a rural setting.","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130229633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Qualitative Assessment of Parental Preschool Choices and Challenges Among Families Experiencing Homelessness: Policy and Practice Implications","authors":"Lindsey Stillman, K. Hurd, C. Kieffer, Jamie Taylor, Britton A Gibson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3055236","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3055236","url":null,"abstract":"On a single night in 2013—as measured by the Point-In-Time count conducted by homeless services providers under the auspice of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—more than 70,000 families and 130,000 children were experiencing homelessness across the United States. Of these families, 80 percent were headed by single mothers, and 40 percent had at least one child under the age of 1 (HUD, 2013a).","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125956620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Policy Evaluation, Randomized Controlled Trials, and External Validity – A Systematic Review","authors":"J. Peters, Joerg Langbein, G. Roberts","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2721679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2721679","url":null,"abstract":"When properly implemented, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) can achieve a high degree of internal validity. Yet, if an RCT is to inform policy interventions that extend beyond the experimental population, it is critical to establish external validity. In this paper, we first present a theoretical framework of external validity and identify the potential hazards that compromise generalizing results beyond the studied population, namely Hawthorne effects, general equilibrium effects, specific sample problems, and special care in the provision of the randomized treatment. Second, we reviewed all RCTs published in leading economic journals between 2009 and 2014 and scrutinized the way they deal with external validity. Based on a set of objective indicators, we find that many published RCTs do not discuss hazards to external validity and do not provide the information that is necessary to assess potential problems. Apparently, external validity is not an important matter of concern during the peer review process. To conclude, we call for a more systematic approach to report the results of RCTs, including external validity dimensions.","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116052025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Asset Creation Through National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGs) and Its Impact on West Bengal Agriculture: A District Level Analysis","authors":"A. Kundu, Sanjib Talukdar","doi":"10.1956/JGE.V12I3.435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1956/JGE.V12I3.435","url":null,"abstract":"An important objective of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme presently known as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is to raise agricultural productivity through creating different productive assets related to agriculture. The present study investigates whether different kinds of asset creation activities related to agriculture under NREGS have any impact on the cropping intensity of West Bengal over the years. We have taken 18 districts in West Bengal and the time period is considered up to 2013-14. We primarily carried out Random Effect estimation without considering the district specific effects. The result shows that work like ‘micro irrigation’ and ‘rural connectivity’ through NREGS has created a positive but small impact on cropping intensity. It is further observed that average rain fall and average harvest price of principal crops in the previous period play a significant role to enhance the cropping intensity of West Bengal. Considering few bottlenecks of random effect estimation, we as supplementary carried out the Fixed effect estimation to judge both cross district disparity in cropping intensity through district specific effects and variation over the time periods via examining time specific effects.","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122955687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Prospects for Coal-Fired Power Generation in Saudi Arabia","authors":"Walid Matar, Rodrigo Echeverri, Axel Pierru","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2749596","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2749596","url":null,"abstract":"Almost all of Saudi Arabia’s electric power generation is fueled by oil and gas. Plans for future capacity envisage nuclear and renewables supplementing this mix and freeing up oil for other revenue-generating opportunities. Coal-fired generation has been promoted in some Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries but not, so far, in the Kingdom. Our analysis finds that:At current administered prices of oil and gas, other resources of energy such as solar, nuclear, or imported coal are not competitive for power generation.If decisions were made based on deregulated oil and gas prices:• With the reference coal price, only moderate levels of coal-fired capacity would be introduced. If the remaining capacity were made up of nuclear and solar, this would result in lower Saudi CO2 emissions from power generation than under a ‘business as usual’ scenario.• With the low coal price, CO2 emissions in 2030 cannot be maintained at their current level since coal, rather than solar and nuclear, is used to displace oil and gas from the generation fuel mix.Some forecasts of coal markets anticipate significant increases in real export prices, which would make coal-fired power generation unattractive compared with constructing nuclear power.","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116487629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Experiment on Information Use in College Student Loan Decisions","authors":"R. Darolia","doi":"10.21799/FRBP.WP.2016.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21799/FRBP.WP.2016.18","url":null,"abstract":"There is ample concern that college students are making ill-informed student loan decisions with potentially negative consequences to themselves and the broader economy. This paper reports the results of a randomized field experiment in which college students are provided salient information about their borrowing choices. The setting is a large flagship public university in the Midwest, and the sample includes all nongraduating students who previously borrowed student loan money (~10,000 students). Half of the students received individually tailored letters with simplified information about future monthly payments, cumulative borrowing, and the typical borrowing of peers; the other half is the control group that received no additional information. There are at most modest effects of the letter overall, which suggests that information alone is not sufficient to drive systematically different borrowing choices among students. However, some key student subgroups changed their borrowing in response to the letter, particularly those with low GPAs. There is also evidence of intended (more contact with financial aid professionals) and unintended (lower Pell Grant receipt) consequences of the letter.","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"275 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123079367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Контроль Качества Социальных Обследований (Quality Control of Social Surveys)","authors":"Dmitriy M. Rogozin, Anna Ipatova","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2664597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2664597","url":null,"abstract":"Russian Abstract: В первой главе представлены результаты экспериментального плана, который заключался в том, чтобы пройти по маршрутам личного опроса (общенациональный репрезентативный опрос на 9500 респондентов, проводила одна из ведущих опросных компаний России) и дойти до самих респондентов. Мы смогли переговорить с жителями указанных в качестве опрошенных квартир, а также с их соседями, и не нашли ни одного респондента. Во второй главе мы проанализировали саму выборку по Москве, попавшие в неё административные округа и районы, все адреса и маршруты по всем имеющимся у нас источникам. После того, как был обнаружен несуществующий дом, мы отдельно проверяли наличие всех включённых в реализованную выборку домов на карте Москвы. Мы не просто проходили маршрут в поиске респондентов, а фиксировали и проверяли все обращения, указанные в маршрутных листах интервьюерами опросной компании. Задача состояла в оценке уровня достижимости и усилий, которые затрачивали интервьюеры для опроса нужного количества респондентов, попавших в маршрутную выборку. Вновь обнаружились массовые фальсификации и фабрикации. Для этого отобрали наиболее «чистые» по всей документации маршруты и повторили их. Процесс отбора чистых маршрутов, а также их анализ и результаты повторных обращений подробно изложены в третьей главе. Четвертая глава представляет результаты третьего экспериментального плана, когда наши сотрудники устроились работать в ведущую российскую опросную компанию интервьюерами для проведения поквартирных опросов. Задача была понять, насколько фабрикации и фальсификации закреплены на институциональном уровне, что происходит внутри самой опросной «машины», как организована методическая работа с интервьюерами и каков статус этих работников.Последняя, пятая глава, представляет собой методические рекомендации для проведения поквартирных опросов при помощи компьютеризированных технологий. Фиксация параданных в автоматизированных опросах – один из выходов в сложившейся ситуации со ставшим уже традиционным нарушением исследовательской этики в массовых опросах. Мы предлагаем список переменных, которые должны присутствовать в программном обеспечении электронных устройств для соблюдения определенной «чистоты» полевой работы и борьбы с массовыми фальсификациями и фабрикациями.English Abstract: The first chapter presents the results of a pilot plan, which consisted in the fact that the routes pass personal interview (a national representative survey of 9,500 respondents conducted one of the leading Russian companies questionnaires) and walk to the respondents. We were able to talk with the residents of these apartments as the respondents, as well as with their neighbors, and have not found one respondent.In the second chapter we analyzed a sample of Moscow itself, trapped in her administrative districts and regions, all the addresses and routes for all sources available to us. Once the house was found a non-existent, we separately tested the presence of all included in reali","PeriodicalId":341058,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Primary Taxonomy (Topic)","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126942801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}