http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/3481 2013-05-20T00:24:59Z http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/7006 Household schooling decisions and conditional cash transfers in rural Nicaragua Ford, Deanna This paper will examine the difference in household schooling decisions in agricultural versus other households in rural areas in Nicaragua. The hypothesis is that families involved only in agriculture will experience higher costs and lower perceived returns to schooling than other families and therefore demand less education overall than other families. This paper with also investigate the differences between agricultural and non-agricultural households in the context of the education incentives offered by Nicaragua's Red de Protección Social (RPS). Data analysis indicates a lower initial demand for education but a greater effect of the RPS program on school outcomes among households involved only in agriculture. This suggests that the RPS program created adequate incentives to compensate for the lower perceived net benefits to schooling among agricultural households to change their allocation of resources to increase investments in education. 2010-03-08T18:37:53Z http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/7004 Families at Risk: Examining Lack of Supervision Allegations among Families with Prior Child Protective Services Involvement Zielewski, Erica Each year many school-age children are left to care for themselves. While this may be suitable for children with sufficient levels of maturity and the physical and mental abilities to execute appropriate judgment, for others it may constitute child neglect. This project examined the antecedents of inadequate supervision of children among families with prior allegations of child maltreatment. Using the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), the results indicated that mothers' maternal mental health, economic well-being (income and employment), and perceived social support were associated with neglectful supervision of children between ages 4 to 6 among families with previous involvement in the child protective system before age 4. Specifically, the likelihood of an inadequate child supervision allegation is greater among mothers with lower perceptions of social support, clinical levels of depression, who are unemployed, and have low incomes compared to their counterparts without these characteristics. The findings suggest that parents with histories of child maltreatment remain at risk of future allegations of neglectful supervision and that CPS agencies must seize opportunities to support mothers and families in hopes of preventing future maltreatment. 2010-03-08T15:37:28Z http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/7002 Corruption's Effect on Public Military and Education Expenditures: A Cross Country Analysis Yilmaz, Yuksel Corruption has attracted the attention of national governments and international organizations since the end of the cold war. The collapse of the Soviet Union shifted the destination of donations and aid from making and keeping alliances to democratization and development. This new trend increased the efforts by policy makers and policy analysts to measure corruption and quantitatively analyze its causes and consequences. This research contributes the literature on corruption by analyzing corruption's impact on the amount of money that governments spend on the military and education. It differs from earlier studies of the questions by using more recent data, using more observations, and by including different explanatory variables to overcome the problems of omitted variable bias and small sample sizes. Contrary to earlier studies, the study finds a negative and significant association between corruption and government spending on both education and the military. As the level of corruption increases, the total money spent on education and military decreases. Thus, governments should develop effective anti-corruption strategies so that they can increase the resources available to invest on economic and social development. 2010-03-08T15:13:27Z http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/7001 I don't want to pay for that! Representation and the public opinion - foreign policy dynamic : public opinion on U.S. foreign aid spending from 1973 to 2005 Yehia, Hanan There is a significant amount of research in the public policy literature exploring the relationship between public preferences and policy-maker behavior. While we know that constituents expect elected policy-makers to carry out their wishes, the extent to which this is true in various policy domains remains debatable. The consensus in the public opinion literature is that policy-makers consistently act in-line with public preferences on domestic issues given that Americans tend to be better informed and more passionate about these subjects. However, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 foreign affairs are becoming an increasingly popular topic and most politicians now refer to foreign aid as a national security tool. Have policy-maker claims that foreign aid is an anti-terror tool caused a shift in public opinion about foreign aid spending and perhaps increased policy-maker responsiveness in this arena? I hypothesize that policy-makers do respond to public preferences for foreign aid spending. This work will use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to examine the relationship between public preferences for aid spending and policy-maker behavior, and attempt to draw some conclusions regarding what these data tell us about representation and the formulation of foreign aid policy in the United States. 2010-03-08T15:03:04Z http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/7000 Children of incarcerated mothers: the effect of maternal incarceration on child cognitive, behavioral and educational outcomes Wintfeld, Jessica As has been documented, the growing prison population in the United States has increased the number of children who are growing up with a parent in jail or prison. The effect of parental incarceration and maternal incarceration specifically, may be particularly detrimental to child development due to the instability and social stigma that is attached to this particular cause for a parent's absence from the home. To more fully understand the impact maternal incarceration has on the child, I use the NLSY79 and the associated Child and Young Adult Survey to investigate the effect, if any, of maternal incarceration on the inmate's child's cognitive outcomes, behavior and educational attainment. The results of the investigation, however, are largely inconclusive and lead me to suggest that better data collection must be focused on incarcerated women and their children. 2010-03-08T14:39:46Z http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/6998 Social Franchising and the Efficiency of Sexual and Reproductive Health Care in India Wexler, Adam Building business franchises to deliver basic services traditionally provided by the government social franchising is being explored by private and non-governmental actors to improve the dire state of child and maternal health in India. In 2000, a non-profit organization called Janani began bringing the private providers of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services throughout India into a franchise network. Janani believed that social franchising of existing private SRH providers could increase the quality and efficiency of the services provided while keeping cost within reach of the poor. This paper uses a 2004 survey of 1,686 health facilities in India including both members and non-members of the Janani franchise to statistically assess the relationship between efficiency of health care provision and franchise membership. The results suggest that franchise facilities are more efficient at providing SRH services under certain circumstances. Specifically, additional doctors and/or clinical support staff are correlated with higher client throughput at franchise facilities than at non-franchised facilities. This increase in client throughput appears to occur without a hint of corresponding declines in the client perception of the quality of care. These results suggest that policies encouraging franchise membership are warranted in specific circumstances. 2010-03-08T14:16:28Z http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/6997 Does Defense R&D Boost or Bust Innovation? An Examination of Defense R&D Budget and Patenting Ward, Jacob This thesis explores the relationship between defense research & development (R&D) budget and R&D productivity, as measured by the number of patent applications. Statistical analysis tests whether defense R&D budget inhibits or augments R&D productivity. Specifically, a series of four two-way fixed-effects models estimate patenting as a function of industry-financed R&D and government-financed R&D. Defense R&D budget is introduced and its impact analyzed using interaction terms and omitted variable bias analyses. Data for this analysis come from 25 developed countries in the period 1985-2005. Regression models reveal that defense R&D budget reduces the productivity of industry-financed R&D at a statistically significant level. These models also facilitate two secondary conclusions: government-financed R&D crowds-out the productivity of industry-financed R&D to a very small degree at a statistically significant level, and defense R&D reduces a nation's capacity to effectively use international technology transfer. 2010-03-08T14:08:00Z http://aladinrc.wrlc.org:80/handle/1961/6996 Examining the Impact of Moving from Renter-Occupied Housing to Owner-Occupied Housing on Early Educational Outcomes Wahlig, Amanda With increasing demands for schools to produce high test scores, understanding what influences children's success is of great importance. While stability has been shown to be a key indicator of children's academic performance, specific mechanisms of stability are unclear. Existing research indicates that housing tenure itself influences children's school performance, but these studies have used static, rather than dynamic measures of home ownership status. This paper builds on this research by examining the effect of housing tenure change from rented to owner-occupied housing on the school performance of early elementary-aged children. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the results reveal that changing housing tenure during first to third grade is a statistically significant predictor of children's achievement test scores in math, although not reading. While additional research is needed, this finding provides modest evidence of the promise of programs designed to help homeownership, particularly among families with young children, to also enhance children's academic success. 2010-03-08T13:53:38Z