Can nutritional label use influence body weight outcomes?

Nutritional labeling has been of much interest to policy makers and health advocates due to rising obesity trends. So can nutritional label use really help reduce body weight outcomes? This study evaluates the impact of nutritional label use on body weight using the propensity score matching technique. We conducted a series of tests related to variable choice of the propensity score specification, quality of matching indicators, robustness checks, and sensitivity to unobserved heterogeneity using Rosenbaum bounds to validate our propensity score exercise. Our results generally suggest that nutritional label use does not affect body mass index. Implications of our findings are discussed.Nutritional Labels, Body Mass Index, Propensity Score Matching, sensitivity analysis

Using Matching Estimators to Evaluate the Effect of Unit-Based Pricing on Municipal Solid Waste Disposal

The delivery of municipal services for the collection, transfer, and disposal of household solid waste is often provided by local governmental units; typically at the town or city level. Unit-based pricing, also known as pay-as-you-throw (PAYT), is a residential solid waste collection program requiring households to pay a fee per bag of trash disposed. Unit-based pricing represents a significant departure from the historical practice of financing solid waste service from property tax revenues in which the marginal cost to a household for disposing solid waste is effectively zero. Local governments are motivated to adopt unit-based pricing for the purpose of creating a financial incentive for households to reduce the quantity of solid waste disposed and concurrently increasing the level of recycled materials. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of unit-based pricing of household solid waste disposal. A counter-factual model is used to estimate the program effect. The study area for this paper consists of the 234 incorporated towns and cities in the state of New Hampshire. As of 2008, 40 towns had adopted a form of unit-based pricing of household solid waste. Results from propensity score matching suggest there is an average annual reduction of 466 pounds of household solid waste due to unit-based pricing.Propensity score matching, unit-based pricing, pay-as-you-throw, municipal solid waste, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Opium for the Masses: How Foreign Free Media Can Stabilize Authoritarian Regimes

A common claim in the democratization literature is that foreign free media undermine authoritarian rule. No reliable micro-level evidence on this topic exists, however, since independent survey research is rarely possible in authoritarian regimes and self-selection into media consumption complicates causal inferences. In this case study of the impact of West German television on political attitudes in communist East Germany, we address these problems by making use of previously secret survey data and a natural experiment. While most East Germans were able to tune in to West German broadcasts, some of them were cut off from West German television due to East Germany's topography. We exploit this plausibly exogenous variation to estimate the impact of West German television on East Germans' political attitudes using instrumental variable estimators. Contrary to conventional wisdom, East Germans who watched West German television were more satisfied with life in East Germany and the communist regime. To explain this surprising finding, we demonstrate that West German television's role in transmitting political information not available in the state-controlled communist media was insignificant and that television primarily served as a means of entertainment for East Germans. Archival material on the reaction of the East German regime to the availability of West German television corroborates our argument.instrumental variables; causal inference; local average response function; media effects; East Germany; democratization