Trading-Off Reproductive Technology and Adoption: Does Subsidizing in Vitro Fertilization Decrease Adoption Rates and Should It Matter?

For those facing infertility, using assisted reproductive technology to have genetically related children is a very expensive proposition. In particular, to produce a live birth through in vitro fertilization (IVF) will cost an individual (on average) between $66,667 and$114,286 in the U.S. If forced to pay these prices out of pocket, many would be unable to afford this technology. Given this reality, a number of states have attempted to improve access to reproductive technology through state-level insurance mandates that cover IVF. Several scholars, however, have worried that increasing access in this way will cause a diminution in adoptions and have argued against enactment of state mandates for that reason. In this paper, which was selected for presentation at the 2010 Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum, we push against that conclusion on two fronts. First, we interrogate the normative premises of the argument and expose its contestable implicit assumptions about how the state should balance the interests of existing children waiting for adoption and those seeking access to reproductive technology in order to have genetically related children. Second, we investigate the unexamined empirical question behind the conclusion: does state subsidization of reproductive technologies through insurance mandates actually reduce adoption; that is, is there a trade-off between helping individuals conceive and helping children waiting to be adopted? We call the claim that there is such an effect the “substitution theory.” Using the differential timing of introduction of state-level insurance mandates relating to IVF in some states and differences in the forms these mandates take, we employ several different econometric techniques (differences-in-differences, ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares) to examine the effect of these mandates on IVF utilization and adoption. Contrary to the assumption of the substitution theory, we find no strong evidence that state support of IVF through these mandates crowds out either domestic or international adoption. Appendix A re-analyses our results using the insurance mandate categorization of other studies in the literature

Planning for Density in a Driverless World

Automobile-centered, low-density development was the defining feature of population growth in the United States for decades. This development pattern displaced wildlife, destroyed habitat, and contributed to a national loss of biodiversity. It also meant, eventually, that commutes and air quality worsened, a sense of local character was lost in many places, and the negative consequences of sprawl impacted an increasing percentage of the population. Those impacts led to something of a shift in the national attitude toward sprawl. More people than ever are fluent in concepts of “smart growth,” “new urbanism,” and “green building,” and with these tools and others, municipalities across the country are working to redevelop a central core, rethink failing transit systems, and promote pockets of density. Changing technology may disrupt this trend. Self-driving vehicles are expected to be widespread within the next several decades. Those vehicles will likely reduce congestion, air pollution, and deaths, and free up huge amounts of productive time in the car. These benefits may also eliminate much of the conventional motivation and rationale behind sprawl reduction. As the time-cost of driving falls, driverless cars have the potential to incentivize human development of land that, by virtue of its distance from settled metropolitan areas, had been previously untouched. From the broader ecological perspective, each human surge into undeveloped land results in habitat destruction and fragmentation, and additional loss of biological diversity. New automobile technology may therefore usher in better air quality, increased safety, and a significant threat to ecosystem health. Our urban and suburban environments have been molded for centuries to the needs of various forms of transportation. The same result appears likely to occur in response to autonomous vehicles, if proactive steps are not taken to address their likely impacts. Currently, little planning is being done to prepare for driverless technology. Actors at multiple levels, however, have tools at their disposal to help ensure that new technology does not come at the expense of the nation’s remaining natural habitats. This Article advocates for a shift in paradigm from policies that are merely anti-car to those that are pro-density, and provides suggestions for both cities and suburban areas for how harness the positive aspects of driverless cars while trying to stem the negative. Planning for density regardless of technology will help to ensure that, for the world of the future, there is actually a world

The Evolving Digital Divide Within Higher Education Institutions: a Quantitative Study

Technology has become an integral and important aspect of our world. As such, the author of this study aims to research how technology is used by college students, the people who hope to be tomorrows leaders and innovators. Ideally, all college students will complete their degrees with a comprehensive and well-versed understanding in the most basic and widespread technologies. However, strong technology literacy can be hampered by a students background. This notion is often referred to as the digital divide and can cause some people to have a weak technological background. This study will investigate the digital divide at different types of institutions and see what, if any, impact it has on present-day students.The primary research question asked in this dissertation is what influence does the digital divide have on the technology proficiency of college students. An instrument to analyze college students perceived technology proficiency was developed from the Computer Attitude Scale and Computer Self-Efficacy instruments. The survey was distributed to students at 7 institutions four 4-year public, two 4-year private, and one community college and had 4,860 responses. Data from the responding college students indicated that the digital divide is having an impact upon college students perceived technology proficiency. The data suggests that students that are attending community colleges will have a moderate correlation between their GPA and their perceived technology proficiency. This correlation does not exist at four year institutions. There are various technology constructs that have a statistically significantly difference between college students depending on the age, gender, and the institution type of the student. While caution is given to the results due to violation of assumptions within certain statistical methods used, the multiple findings of significance and magnitude on the variables suggests the need for additional research

North-South Trade and Growth: The Role of Product Quality.

The traditional trade models, which rely on a comparative advantage based on regions’ technology or endowments, or the new trade theory, designed to explain trade between the countries at a similar level of development, fail to replicate recent evidence on world trade patterns and prices. This evidence reveals North-South specialization across products of the same industries and product groups but different quality, rather than across different industries. Furthermore, countries at a higher level of technological development have higher export prices, which shows that more advanced technology does not necessarily imply higher cost efficiency. Therefore, in order to analyze the endogenous growth mechanisms and implications of the IPR protection policy in a North-South trade set-up, this thesis develops a fully-endogenous theoretical framework based on the notion of quality vintages, which results in the North-South production and trade specialization in different quality segments of the market. The model is used to investigate the growth effects of the South opening to trade and the welfare effects of different IPR policy instruments. Finally, the last chapter abstracts from endogenous growth mechanismsQuality of products; International trade;

Fluid urbanism

As we stepped into the 2020s, technologies keep emerging, such as the autonomous vehicle. We can already foresee some of the future cityscapes. Some of the largest vehicle manufactures have already road-tested their autonomous vehicles and shifted their focus to electronic powered vehicles. So what will the future city look like with new autonomous vehicle technology? What does an autonomous vehicle actually mean? What\u27s the potential of this technology? In my thesis, I am not focusing on the impact of existing autonomous technology, but am trying to dig deeper and find its fuller potential. In my thesis autonomous technology as a stepping stone to imagine how our future cities might perform and how their morphology could begin to evolve

A Convex Model of Equilibrium Growth

Our aim in this paper is to exposit a convex model of equilibrium growth. The model is strictly in the Solow tradition. The model has two features which distinguish it from most other work on the subject. These are, first, that the model is convex on the technological side and, eecond, that fixed fatten are explicitly included. The difference between our model and the standard single sector growth model lies in the fact that the marginal product of capital does not converge to zero as the level of inputs go to infinity. Existence and characterization results are provided along with some preliminary analyses of taxation and international trade policies. It is shown that the long-run growth rate in per capita consumption depends, in the natural way, on the parameters describing tastes and technology. Finally, it is shown that some policies have growth effects while others affect only levels. It is demonstrated that in a free trade equilibrium with taxation national growth rates of consumption and output need not converge.

Conflict and Uncertainty: A Dynamic Approach

Most of the conflict theory papers have used a one-shot game set-up. This does not correspond to reality and is certainly incapable of modeling real conflict situations. We propose a dynamic model with N-agents in an infinite time frame which allow us to adequately analyze conflicts. The dynamic aspects of the conflict come at least from two sources: first, the preferences on the good in dispute are not static; second, agentsin conflict can influence the future of the conflict by making investment in conflict's technology. We use a simple deterministic rule that defines the evolution of the subjective valuation for the good in dispute according to the results obtained by the agents in the recent past. During each period the realization of stochastic variables of the nature's states induces uncertainty in the game. The model is a theoretical approach that can be applied to evaluate the role of uncertainty and valuations' evolution on the optimal choices of forward-looking economic agents that seek to appropriate a share of a divisible resource.Conflict Theory, Dynamic Economic Model, Uncertainty

The Relation between Vocational Training in High School and Economic Outcomes

The examination of foreign takeovers is a way of distinguishing between the characteristics of f inns and industries that encourage takeovers and the effects of foreignness or of takeovers per se. Foreigners have tended to take over Swedish firms that are of above average size within each industry. 'Very .few takeovers are of the smallest groups of firms: those with fewer than 20 employees or even those with fewer than 200. However, the firms taken over are not large compared to Swedish companies of 200 employees or more. In fact, they are well below average size within that group. The firms taken over are more skill-oriented or technology-oriented than Swedish-owned firms in the same industries. However, takeovers are not particularly prevalent in industries in which f inns in general are large or skill-oriented or technology-oriented. Thus the select ion of this paper examines estimated relationships between economic outcomes and vocational training in high school. We find that these relationships are relatively robust with respect to variation in the way that type and quality of vocational training is measured as well as with respect to a number of other variations in specification. None of the evidence we have developed supports a view that vocational training for male students in high school produces any special skills that are valued by firms beyond those that are produced by a general high school education. The evidence does suggest that in the early 70's commercial-business programs taken by young women did produce such valued skills. But the evidence pertaining to later years is inconclusive firms for takeover is based on f inn characteristics, not industry characteristics. After takeover by foreigners, firms grow somewhat faster than Swedish-owned firms in the same industries. The technological characteristics of the firms, by the crude measurements we have been able to apply so far, do not seem to be affected in any consistent way by takeover.

The Development and Integration of Nearpod Materials into a High School Biology Curriculum

Due to the previously outlined benefits of formative assessment, and the increasing ability of technology of aid in its implementation there are very few barriers to experimenting with new technology in the classroom. While the technology available to classroom teachers does not need to be incredibly high tech, it should be compatible with what students and teachers already have at their fingertips. Applications like Socrative are beneficial because they allow for a classroom teacher to use technology already in the classroom (mobile phones and laptops) and utilize them in the collection of formative assessment data (Coca & Slisko, 2013). Students are typically highly engaged when using mobile devices in the classroom and while the “pay off” of student engagement does diminish over time with the increased use of an app, the decrease is not significant (Wang, 2015). Nearpod is an application like Socrative in that it allows for the classroom teacher to easily question their students and collect a large amount of data that can then be used to encourage student metacognition and learning. Nearpod has even more features that Socrative, including a drawing feature and a highly advanced data analysis report that can be downloaded after a lesson. Due to its beneficial capabilities that allow for many different types of formative assessment, Nearpod activities should be integrated into the curriculum of a high school biology classroom