Applying Behavioural Economics to International Development Policy

behavioural economics, policy

Salivary gland structure and function in experimental diabetes mellitus

While salivary secretion is not initiated by circulating hormones, there are significant endocrine influences on the development, structure and function of salivary glands. Experimental animal models of diabetes mellitus have been used to study all aspects of diabetic pathophysiology. There is now a considerable body of evidence demonstrating that the effects of diabetes on rodent salivary glands are related as much to the indirect consequences of insulin insufficiency on the circulating levels of other hormones, and autonomic nerve function, as to the direct actions of insulin. In addition to their exocrine functions, salivary glands also play an endocrine role. Rodent submandibular glands, in particular, are a rich source of biologically active polypeptides, which are synthesized in the granular ducts. Although many of these polypeptides are released into both the blood and the saliva, their physiological functions have yet to be fully explored. Nevertheless, the disruption of submandibular gland endocrine function has been postulated to contribute to the pathology observed in diabetic animals.Biomedical Reviews 1998; 9: 107-119

Applying behavioural economics to international development policy

Many development policies and programmes are premised on a traditional economic model of rationality to predict how individuals will respond to changes in incentives. Despite the emphasis of these programmes on poverty reduction, economists and the development community in general are still unable to fully understand how the poor make decisions, especially under uncertainty and over time. Individuals avail themselves less than predicted in health programmes, participate less than expected in market opportunities, under or over insure themselves, and make short-run decisions that are inconsistent with their long-run welfare. The rise and fall of different descriptive models and paradigms of poor household behaviour can partly be attributed to this limited understanding. More helpful answers may lay within behavioural economics, that these insights are particularly important for poor populations, and that they can improve the future design, implementation and subsequent effectiveness of development programmes. Behavioural economics is an approach that rigorously combines the insights of psychology and economics to try to better understand and predict human decision making. Empirical evidence is helping us learn, for example, how cognitive limitations, fairness, loss aversion, framing of choices, variable discount rates, and the qualitative dimensions of risk—such as proximity and control—affect decision making. The regularity of many of these anomalies suggests that these behaviours are anomalous only to traditional models, but that they may otherwise be the norm

Public policy and the promise of digital credit for financial inclusion

Digital credit products are characterized by a lending process that is instantaneous, automated, and remote. While digital credit has the potential to reach less collateralized, less mobile, and more remote cohorts of borrowers, there are also risks in relying on digital credit for financial inclusion. This paper investigates the digital credit policy environment and the extent to which it may support pro-poor digital credit market development using two types of documents: a set of 23 regulatory documents specifically mentioning either digital or online credit or lending, and another set of 298 informal documents relevant to digital credit based on a systematic web search. After reviewing the literature on the effects of credit expansion and automated credit scoring, we summarize the characteristics of the current digital credit regulatory environment in low- and middle-income countries. Our findings suggest that few regulations specifically target digital credit markets, and that the current regulatory environment may not support the full potential of digital credit to reach historically underserved credit consumers. Most countries do not explicitly target financial inclusion as part of their digital credit policies. However, we do find evidence that informal web documents consider financial inclusion to a greater extent than formal regulatory documents

Improving evidence on women’s groups: a proposed typology and common reporting indicators

Women’s groups are a widely implemented and researched development intervention, particularly in South Asia and Africa. Groups encompass many models and aim to address a range of objectives. However, there is no consistent approach to describing their varied implementation models, which hinders the accurate interpretation of evidence and construct validity. Drawing from three recent evidence reviews and research experience with groups, we propose a typology and common reporting indicators to describe women’s groups. As large-scale investments in women’s groups grow, these tools can support the interpretation and transferability of evidence across models and settings

Wrack placement to augment constructed dunes: A field investigation

Natural and nature-based features have become increasingly popular in recent years for several reasons including reduced costs and maintenance, sustainability, and ecological benefits. One such nature-based feature which contributes to coastal resiliency is dune systems. Extensive research shows that dune systems provide great value for coastal protection, with vegetation and belowground biomass emerging as crucial factors for dune stability. Alternative dune construction and dune maintenance methods are needed to improve the resilience and stability of these dune systems. Wrack, vegetation and macroalgae that naturally washes up along the coast, is often removed during routine beach maintenance, but could serve to increase dune biomass, sand trapping, and overall dune resiliency. This manuscript documents preliminary results following the placement of wrack along constructed dunes on the Mississippi mainland coast. Terrestrial lidar surveys were used to evaluate morphological responses of a 550 m stretch of the beach, with varying raking and wrack management practices implemented in designated sections. Elevation and volumetric change calculated from these data were compared across storm erosion and fair-weather recovery periods to quantify the potential benefits of utilizing natural wrack material in the dunes and reducing beach raking

Enabling precision medicine in neonatology, an integrated repository for preterm birth research.

Preterm birth, or the delivery of an infant prior to 37 weeks of gestation, is a significant cause of infant morbidity and mortality. In the last decade, the advent and continued development of molecular profiling technologies has enabled researchers to generate vast amount of 'omics' data, which together with integrative computational approaches, can help refine the current knowledge about disease mechanisms, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Here we describe the March of Dimes' Database for Preterm Birth Research (http://www.immport.org/resources/mod), a unique resource that contains a variety of 'omics' datasets related to preterm birth. The database is open publicly, and as of January 2018, links 13 molecular studies with data across tens of thousands of patients from 6 measurement modalities. The data in the repository are highly diverse and include genomic, transcriptomic, immunological, and microbiome data. Relevant datasets are augmented with additional molecular characterizations of almost 25,000 biological samples from public databases. We believe our data-sharing efforts will lead to enhanced research collaborations and coordination accelerating the overall pace of discovery in preterm birth research

Cluster-randomized, crossover trial of head positioning in acute stroke

The role of supine positioning after acute stroke in improving cerebral blood flow and the countervailing risk of aspiration pneumonia have led to variation in head positioning in clinical practice. We wanted to determine whether outcomes in patients with acute ischemic stroke could be improved by positioning the patient to be lying flat (i.e., fully supine with the back horizontal and the face upwards) during treatment to increase cerebral perfusion. METHODS In a pragmatic, cluster-randomized, crossover trial conducted in nine countries, we assigned 11,093 patients with acute stroke (85% of the strokes were ischemic) to receive care in either a lying-flat position or a sitting-up position with the head elevated to at least 30 degrees, according to the randomization assignment of the hospital to which they were admitted; the designated position was initiated soon after hospital admission and was maintained for 24 hours. The primary outcome was degree of disability at 90 days, as assessed with the use of the modified Rankin scale (scores range from 0 to 6, with higher scores indicating greater disability and a score of 6 indicating death). RESULTS The median interval between the onset of stroke symptoms and the initiation of the assigned position was 14 hours (interquartile range, 5 to 35). Patients in the lying-flat group were less likely than patients in the sitting-up group to maintain the position for 24 hours (87% vs. 95%, P\u3c0.001). In a proportional-odds model, there was no significant shift in the distribution of 90-day disability outcomes on the global modified Rankin scale between patients in the lying-flat group and patients in the sitting-up group (unadjusted odds ratio for a difference in the distribution of scores on the modified Rankin scale in the lying-flat group, 1.01; 95% confidence interval, 0.92 to 1.10; P = 0.84). Mortality within 90 days was 7.3% among the patients in the lying-flat group and 7.4% among the patients in the sitting-up group (P = 0.83). There were no significant betweengroup differences in the rates of serious adverse events, including pneumonia. CONCLUSIONS Disability outcomes after acute stroke did not differ significantly between patients assigned to a lying-flat position for 24 hours and patients assigned to a sitting-up position with the head elevated to at least 30 degrees for 24 hours

Blue Straggler Stars in Globular Clusters: a powerful tool to probe the internal dynamical evolution of stellar systems

This chapter presents an overview of the main observational results obtained to date about Blue Straggler Stars (BSSs) in Galactic Globular Clusters (GCs). The BSS specific frequency, radial distribution, chemical composition and rotational properties are presented and discussed in the framework of using this stellar population as probe of GC internal dynamics. In particular, the shape of the BSS radial distribution has been found to be a powerful tracer of the dynamical age of stellar systems, thus allowing the definition of the first empirical "dynamical clock".Comment: Chapter 5, in Ecology of Blue Straggler Stars, H.M.J. Boffin, G. Carraro & G. Beccari (Eds), Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Springe

First semi-empirical test of the white dwarf mass-radius relationship using a single white dwarf via astrometric microlensing

Funding: Support for this research was provided by NASA through grants from STScI. HST data used in this paper are available from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at STScI (https://archive.stsci.edu/hst/search.php) under proposal IDs 15705, 15961 and 16251. PM acknowledges studentship funding support from the United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Cambridge Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science (CDT-DIS). MBN acknowledges support from the UK Space Agency. This research is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5–26555. This work presents results from the European Space Agency (ESA) space mission Gaia. Gaia data are being processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC). Funding for the DPAC is provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multi-Lateral Agreement (MLA). The Gaia mission website is https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia. The Gaia Archive website is http://archives.esac.esa.int/gaia.In November 2019 the nearby single, isolated DQ-type white dwarf LAWD 37 (LP 145-141) aligned closely with a distant background source and caused an astrometric microlensing event. Leveraging astrometry from Gaia and followup data from the Hubble Space Telescope we measure the astrometric deflection of the background source and obtain a gravitational mass for LAWD 37. The main challenge of this analysis is in extracting the lensing signal of the faint background source whilst it is buried in the wings of LAWD 37's point spread function. Removal of LAWD 37's point spread function induces a significant amount of correlated noise which we find can mimic the astrometric lensing signal. We find a deflection model including correlated noise caused by the removal of LAWD 37's point spread function best explains the data and yields a mass for LAWD 37 of 0.56 ± 0.08 M ⊙. This mass is in agreement with the theoretical mass-radius relationship and cooling tracks expected for CO core white dwarfs. Furthermore, the mass is consistent with no or trace amounts of hydrogen that is expected for objects with helium-rich atmospheres like LAWD 37. We conclude that further astrometric followup data on the source is likely to improve the inference on LAWD 37's mass at the ≈3 percent level and definitively rule out purely correlated noise explanations of the data. This work provides the first semi-empirical test of the white dwarf mass-radius relationship using a single, isolated white dwarf and supports current model atmospheres of DQ white dwarfs and white dwarf evolutionary theory.PreprintPostprintPeer reviewe