Grading bias and young adult mental health

We study exposure to grading bias and provide novel evidence of its impact on mental health. Grading bias, which we interpret as over-grading, is constructed as the residual of final upper secondary school grades having controlled for results in a standardized test, itself not subject to grading leniency. Grading bias is further isolated by considering only within-school variation in over-grading and controlling for prior grades and school production. Using Swedish individual-level register data for individuals graduating from upper secondary school in the years 2001-2004, we show that over-grading has substantial significant protective impacts on the mental health of young adults, but only among female students. That grades themselves, independent of knowledge, substantially impact the production of health highlights an important health production mechanism, and implies that any changes to the design of grading systems must consider these wider health implications.

Using Multi-Arm Designs to Test Operating Welfare-to-Work Programs

BACKGROUND

In the early 1970s, most researchers thought that randomized controlled trials (RCTs) could not be used to measure the effectiveness of large-scale operating welfare reform and employment programs. By the mid-1970s, the Supported Work Demonstration showed that, under certain conditions, this was both feasible and valuable. However, the experimental design was simple; a multi-arm test had been rejected as unrealistic. Within 10 years, a three-arm design was implemented in San Diego to assess both a welfare-to-work program's overall impact and the contribution of a specific component. Less than 10 years later, the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS)/National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) study used a more complex design to determine the relative effectiveness of two strategies operated in the same locations: one emphasizing getting a job quickly and the other requiring basic education. In San Diego and JOBS/NEWWS, the tested reforms emerged from political processes and were funded through regular program budgets. In both cases, researchers inserted multi-arm RCTs into operating welfare offices, trading control over the treatment for scale (thousands of people) and real-world conditions. Both RCTs were successfully implemented.

OBJECTIVES AND RESULTS

This article examines why multi-arm designs were attempted, how they were structured, why public administrators cooperated, what various actors sought to learn, and how the researchers determined what strategies the different experimental arms ended up to truly represent. The article concludes that these designs provide convincing evidence and can be inserted into operating programs if the studies address questions that are of keen and immediate interest to state or local program administrators and researchers.

Does Tourism Induce Sustainable Human Capital Development in BRICS Through the Channel of Capital Formation and Financial Development? Evidence From Augmented ARDL With Structural Break and Fourier-TY Causality

The motivation of the study is to explore the nexus tourism-led sustainable human capital development (HCD) in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) for the period 1984-2019. The study applied several econometrical techniques for exposing the empirical association between tourism and HCD, such as the conventional and structural break unit root test, the combined cointegration test, long-run and short-run coefficients detected through implementing the Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (AARDL), and directional causality by following Toda-Yamamoto with Fourier function. The unit-roots test established variables are integrated in mixed order, wherein variables are stationary at a level or after the first difference. The estimated test statistics from the combined cointegration test and AARDL confirmed the long-run association between tourism, gross capital formation, financial development, and HCD. Tourism revealed a positive and statistically significant tie with HCD in the long run. Moreover, the joint effects of interactive terms TOR^*GCF and TOR^*FD (TOR, GCF, and FD denoting tourism development, gross capital formation, and financial development, respectively) established a positive and statistically significant relationship with HCD. In addition, the causality test revealed the feedback hypothesis available between tourism and HCD in all sample countries except India. In conclusion, the role of tourism development is critically important for sustainable HCD in BRICS. Therefore, in case of a policymaking concern, it is inevitable to address the tourism issues with care for capitalizing on the benefits for tourism development.

Reduced water collection time improves learning achievement among primary school children in India

In low-and-middle-income countries, the provisioning of safe drinking water is a challenge that will likely worsen with climate change. Securing water will require more work and time, burdening women and children the most. Currently, the consequences of this time burden to children's development remain understudied. To address this gap, we examine the tradeoff between children's household water collection responsibilities and learning achievement. Using nationally representative data from India, we measure the effect of daily fetching time on primary school children's learning achievement in a two-stage regression model, with rainfall as the instrument. Our analyses indicate that higher fetching times predict lower mathematics (-1.23 standard deviations, 95CI[-2.32, -0.14]), reading (-1.13 standard deviations, 95CI[-2.07, -0.19]), and writing (-1.21 standard deviations, 95CI[-1.89, -0.51]) test scores. These effects are heterogeneous across sex and infrastructure type. For example, we find girls' mathematical and reading skills profit more from reductions in fetching time than boys' (score less affected for boys by β amount: mathematics: β=0.26 points, 95CI[0.095, 0.42]; reading: β=0.27 points, 95CI[0.054, 0.49]). Children using hand pumps, open wells, or tube wells are hurt more academically in mathematics and writing by increases in fetching time than children with mostly off-premises piped access (e.g., writing scores more affected by β amount: hand pump: β=-0.18, 95CI[-0.29, -0.081]; open well: β=-0.18, 95CI[-0.33, -0.040]; tube well: β=-0.14, 95CI[-0.29, -0.00072]). Given these results, we recommend off-premises piped infrastructure in the absence of piped-to-premises water in water-insecure contexts and offer guidance for targeting infrastructure investments in India.

Biomedical research in Nigeria: realities and misconceptions

Investment in biomedical research is believed to drive economic growth and increase human capital, leading to increased productivity and sustainability. Unfortunately, such positive impacts are not palpable among the resource-poor countries. This can be attributed to the poor quality of research findings and the reliability of findings, which often are rarely translated to impactful products or decisions. While the Nigerian governments are making considerable efforts to improve the quality of research through increased funding, as well as sponsorship and training of scholars in technologically advanced institutions. This is in order for the transfer of knowledge to improve the livelihood of its citizens. However, there is still need for the private multinational organizations to support this course.

Lack of quality research constitutes an impediment to the growth and development in Nigeria. Despite the enormous human resources Nigeria has, only a fraction of its research outputs is palpable. This is despite the challenges facing the country, many of which are manageable via robust and efficient research. Notably, among these barriers are lack of funding, equipment and mentoring. Addressing these barriers is a step toward improving research capacity and output. This paper represents a perspective on ways to tackle the challenges as well as the success stories recorded.

Impact of HIV/aids epidemic on human capital development in West Africa

West Africa occupies the third position with respect to the burden of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) globally, after Southern and East Africa. About 5 million adults and children are infected with the disease in the subregion, while HIV prevalence in the general population hovers around 2% and 5%. This paper attempts to investigate the impact of HIV/AIDS epidemic on human capital development in 11 West African countries over the period 1990 to 2011. The study used a dynamic panel data modeling approach, using first difference, difference generalized methods of moment, and system generalized methods of moment estimating techniques. Four measures of HIV/AIDS and 2 human capital measures were used in the study. The findings revealed that HIV/AIDS pandemic had negative and significant impact on human capital in West Africa. However, the statistical significance was more pronounced on life expectancy (a measure of human capital), while the negative impact on school enrolment (another human capital measure) was not significant. It is therefore recommended that the spread of HIV/AIDS disease in West Africa should be effectively controlled, while the number of infected persons undergoing antiretroviral therapy in the subregion should be increased to a near 100% coverage.