| 1. |
- Bejenariu, Simona, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Austerity Measures and Infant Health. Lessons from an Unexpected Wage Cut Policy
- 2013
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We investigate the effects on health at birth of a shock generated by a major (25%) and unexpected wage cut austerity measure that affected all public sector employees in Romania in 2010. Our findings suggest an overall improvement in health at birth for boys exposed to the shock in early gestation and a decreased sex ratio at birth among early exposed children. These findings are consistent with the selection in utero theory hypothesizing that maternal exposure to a significant shock early in gestation preponderantly selects against frail male fetuses, with healthier survivors being carried to term.
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| 2. |
- Bejenariu, Simona, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Bridging the Gap for Roma Women: The Effects of a Health Mediation Program on Roma Prenatal Care and Child Health
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Roma, Europe’s largest minority, face poverty, social exclusion and life-long inequalities, despite the intensified efforts to alleviate their plight. Surprisingly, despite substantial funding aimed at improving Roma outcomes, there is a very little evidence on the effectiveness of these programs. This is the first paper to analyze the Roma Health Mediation Program (RHM), a large-scale public health program implemented first in Romania and developed further in other countries, whose main aim was to improve the health status of pregnant and postpartum Roma women and children, with the help of specially trained Roma health mediators. Using unique registered data from Romania, we exploit the spatial and temporal variation in implementation dates of the program to investigate the effects of the RHM on prenatal care take-up rates and child health. We find that the program had a very large impact on the take-up of prenatal care services, but this improvement was not reflected in the health outcomes at birth of Roma children. However, we do find evidence of decreased stillbirths and infant deaths after the program implementation.
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| 3. |
- Bindler, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Discontinuities in the Age-Victimisation Profile and the Determinants of Victimisation
- 2023
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Ingår i: Economic Journal. - : Oxford University Press. - 0013-0133 .- 1468-0297. ; 134:657, s. 95-134
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dutch victimisation rates increase by 9%-15% immediately upon reaching ages 16 and 18. We disentangle the role of the many rights granted at these ages using offence location data, cross-cohort variation in the minimum legal drinking age driven by a 2014 reform and survey data of alcohol/drug consumption and mobility behaviours. We conclude that access to weak alcohol, bars/clubs and smoking increases victimisation at 16 and that age-18 rights (hard alcohol, marijuana coffee shops) exacerbate this risk; vehicle access does not play an important role. We find no evidence of systematic spillovers onto individuals still ineligible for these rights.
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| 4. |
- Bindler, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Discontinuities in the Age-Victimization Profile and the Determinants of Victimization
- 2021
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Many rights are conferred on Dutch youth at ages 16 and 18. Using national register data for all reported victimizations, we find sharp and discontinuous increases in victimization rates at these ages: about 13% for both genders at 16 and 9% (15%) for males (females) at 18. These results are comparable across subsamples (based on socio-economic and neighborhood characteristics) with different baseline victimization risks. We assess potential mechanisms using data on offense location, cross-cohort variation in the minimum legal drinking age driven by a 2014 reform, and survey data of alcohol/drug consumption and mobility behaviors. We conclude that the bundle of access to weak alcohol, bars/clubs and smoking increases victimization at 16 and that age 18 rights (hard alcohol, marijuana coffee shops) exacerbate this risk; vehicle access does not play an important role. Finally, we do not find systematic spillover effects onto individuals who have not yet received these rights.
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| 5. |
- Borcan, Oana, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Fighting Corruption in Education: What Works and Who Benefits?
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We investigate the efficiency and distributional consequences of a corruptionfighting initiative in Romania targeting the endemic fraud in a high-stakes high school exit exam, which introduced CCTV monitoring of the exam and credible punishment threats. We find that punishment coupled with monitoring was effective in reducing corruption. Estimating the heterogeneous impact for students of different ability, poverty status, and gender, we show that fighting corruption led to efficiency gains (ability predicts exam outcomes better) but also to a worrisome score gap increase between poor and non-poor students. Consequently, the poor students have reduced chances to enter an elite university.
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| 6. |
- Borcan, Oana, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Fighting Corruption in Education: What Works and Who Benefits?
- 2017
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Ingår i: American Economic Journal-Economic Policy. - : American Economic Association. - 1945-7731 .- 1945-774X. ; 9:1, s. 180-209
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigate the efficiency and distributional consequences of a corruptionfighting initiative in Romania targeting the endemic fraud in a high-stakes high school exit exam, which introduced CCTV monitoring of the exam and credible punishment threats. We find that punishment coupled with monitoring was effective in reducing corruption. Estimating the heterogeneous impact for students of different ability, poverty status, and gender, we show that fighting corruption led to efficiency gains (ability predicts exam outcomes better) but also to a worrisome score gap increase between poor and non-poor students. Consequently,the poor students have reduced chances to enter an elite university.
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| 7. |
- Borcan, Oana, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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The Impact of an Unexpected Wage Cut on Corruption: Evidence from a "Xeroxed" Exam
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper aims to understand how corruption responds to financial incentives and, in particular, it is an attempt to identify the causal impact of a wage loss on the prevalence of corruption in the education sector. Specifically, we exploit the unexpected wage cut in May 2010 that affected all Romanian public sector employees, including the public education staff, and examine its effect on students’ scores on the high-stakes national exam which occurs at the end of high school—the Baccalaureate. To exploit the effect of an income shock on corruption, we use a difference-in-difference strategy and compare the change in the exam outcomes between the public schools—the treatment group—and the private schools—the control group, which were unaffected by the wage cut. Our findings suggest that the wage loss led the public schools to have better exam outcomes than the private schools in 2010 relative to 2009. We attribute this difference to the increased involvement in corrupt activities by public school staff, which was driven by financial incentives. These results match an unprecedentedly high number of allegations of fraud and bribery against school principals, which earned the 2010 Baccalaureate the title of the Xeroxed exam—akin to identical test answers found to have been distributed to numerous students.
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| 8. |
- Borcan, Oana, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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The impact of an unexpected wage cut on corruption: Evidence from a “Xeroxed” exam
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Public Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0047-2727 .- 1879-2316. ; 120, s. 32-47
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper aims to understand how corruption responds to an income loss. We exploit an unexpected 25% wage cut incurred in 2010 by all Romanian public sector employees, including the public education staff. We investigate a corruptible high-stake exam taking place shortly after the wage announcement. To measure corruption we compare changes in exam outcomes from 2007 to 2010 between public and private schools, as the latter were not affected by the policy. We find that the wage loss induced better exam outcomes in public than in private schools and we attribute this difference to increased corruption by public educators.
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| 9. |
- Dadgar, Iman, 1982-
(författare)
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Essays on the economics of education and health
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Study I: This paper investigates the effect of the academic ordinal rank position of Swedish grade 9 students relative to their school peers on future educational achievement and adult earnings. The results show evidence of a positive impact of being more highly ranked in the class, and the effects are concentrated to the top and the bottom of the ordinal rank distribution. High-ability students from low-income families gained the most from having a higher ordinal rank in grade 9. The results contrast with US findings, which suggest a similar impact across the rank distribution.Study II: This paper studies the effect of a reform that increased school-level autonomy in determining how to allocate time between different subjects in Sweden. It evaluates the impact of the reform using registry data in a Difference-in-Differences framework. The results suggest that students' educational outcomes, including the subsequent choice of educational track, were not affected by the reform. However, there are some indications that students in large schools and students from low socioeconomic households may have benefited from the reform. Study III: Research suggests that increases in gross domestic product (GDP) lead to increases in traffic deaths plausibly due to the increased road traffic induced by an expanding economy. However, there also seems to exist a long-term effect of economic growth that is manifested in improved traffic safety and reduced rates of traffic deaths. Previous studies focus on either the short-term, procyclical effect, or the long-term, protective effect. The aim of the present study is to estimate the short-term and long-term effects jointly in order to assess the net impact of GDP on traffic mortality. We performed error correction modelling to estimate the short-term and long-term effects of GDP on the traffic death rates. The estimates from the error correction modelling for the entire study period suggested that a one-unit increase (US$1000) in GDP/capita yields an instantaneous short-term increase in the traffic death rate by 0.58 (p<0.001), and a long-term decrease equal to −1.59 (p<0.001). However, period-specific analyses revealed a structural break implying that the procyclical effect outweighs the protective effect in the period prior to 1976, whereas the reverse is true for the period 1976–2011. Study IV: Unemployment might affect several risk factors of cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is the leading cause of death globally. The characterization of the relation between these two phenomena is thus of great significance from a public-health perspective. The main aim of this study was to estimate the association between the unemployment rate and mortality from CVD and from coronary heart disease (CHD). We used time-series data for 32 countries spanning the period 1960–2015. We applied two alternative modelling strategies: (a) error correction modelling, provided that the data were co-integrated; and (b) first-difference modelling in the absence of co-integration. Separate models were estimated for each of five welfare state regimes with different levels of unemployment protection. We also performed country-specific ARIMA-analyses. Because the data did not prove to be co-integrated, we applied first-difference modelling. Our findings, based on data from predominantly affluent countries, suggest that heart-disease mortality does not respond to economic fluctuations.
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