Fertilizer subsidies in Africa: Are vouchers the answer?

"In the 1970s and 1980s, most African countries sold fertilizer at subsidized prices through state-owned enterprises. In response to the fiscal cost and ineffective implementation of these subsidies, as well as pressure from international financial institutions, almost all of these countries liberalized their fertilizer markets to some degree as part of structural adjustment programs carried out in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Under these reforms, governments eliminated state monopolies on fertilizer distribution and phased out universal subsidies." from textFertilizers, subsidies,

Essays in Health Care Economics

This dissertation comprises two essays. The innovation in the first essay is investigating how spine surgeons respond to reimbursement changes. Spinal fusion is the highest US operating room expense and the performed fusion procedure depends on surgeon preference. Substitutable procedures (one-stage posterior, or 1SF, and two-stage fusions, or 2SF) are studied using 2010-2014 national claims data. Results from a multinomial logit model reveal a significant rise in the volume of 2SF, the procedure with the highest physician fee, following a 13.9% reduction in 1SF fees. Risk ratio analysis indicates that patients were 5.8% more likely to receive the costlier 2SF after the policy change. The -0.512 estimated cross-price elasticity of supply suggests that the procedures are substitutes. This contradicts the standard prediction from the target-income hypothesis. The second essay on rent seeking demonstrates how, at the state-level, Certificate of Need programs (CONP) and the strength of the Corporate Practice of Medicine doctrine (CPMD) could enrich incumbent hospitals by limiting competition. Private practice spine surgeons partner with commercial insurers to move common procedures, e.g. spinal decompressions or anterior cervical fusions (ACDFs), from hospital inpatient to ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) reducing procedure cost by as much as 65%. This paper used 2009-2015 claims data on 1,018,171 procedures to determine if the CONP or the CPMD strength influence the choice of higher vs lower cost surgical settings. CONPs in 24 states are a barrier to opening ASCs. The common law, CPMD, prevents corporations from practicing medicine by employing physicians. Hypotheses tested are that CONPs and a weak CPMD lead to fewer procedures in lower cost settings. Results confirm that in states with weak CPMDs, patients are 59% less likely to have an ACDF in an ASC and patients in states with a CONP are 40% less likely to have an ACDF in an ASC

Mapping where the poor live:

Poverty reduction, Hunger, Poverty maps, Program design, Understanding where the poor live, Spatial distribution of poverty,

Sweet Tea: The British Working Class, Food Controls, and The First World War

At the onset of the Great War in 1914, Britain was already existing in a precarious economic situation as the state most dependent on foreign goods and trade, a role which was exacerbated by their unique economic and political history which had resulted in the rapid expansion of industry without any interference or protections of the workers by the government. The working class comprised over 80% of the population of Britain, the vast majority of whom were suffering the destitution and poverty brought on by the unrestricted industrialization that had begun over a century earlier. The beginnings of the Great War however, threw the working poor into even more dire straits, as the cost of food (the item which consumed the bulk of weekly budgets) inflated uncontrollably. The government responded to this crisis in various ways over the four years which followed, and historians often argue that the crisis response of the British Parliament actually improved the dietary and nutritional conditions of the majority of workers when compared to pre-war levels. However, my research shows that if one is able to appropriately use nutritional intake as a measure of standard of living, the actions of the British government towards this problem did not improve the quality of life of the working class, mostly due to the fact that there was little understanding of the way the other class lived. Because of the lack of comprehension on the part of the socially superior strata of British society, the nation spent a long period of the war suffering from unaddressed food shortages. The overall effect of Great War food policy however, did mark the beginning of a progression bridging the social gap between the lower classes and the elite. This was a process which would be required for the creation of the welfare state nearly three decades later, and which was brought about from a lasting change in both the economic conditions and social paradigm of the socially affluent as a result of Great War policy, as opposed to an economic improvement for the working class. Examining the perceptions of the governing classes towards government interference of the traditionally capitalist market will help further two primary historical dialogues. First, identifying the political and ideological shifts which took place during the Great War will help historians’ understanding of the rise of the post-World War Two social state. Second, answering the question of how the British social elite viewed the working class throughout the war will lay additional foundations for the study of historical classist issues

Identifying the Effects of Specific CHC Factors on College Students’ Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is an important skill for college academic success. Much of the research pertaining to reading in general, and reading comprehension specifically, focuses on the success of primary and secondary school-age students. The present study goes beyond previous research by extending such investigation to the reading comprehension of college-age student participants. Using the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theoretical model, this study investigates the effects of seven broad factors on the reading comprehension of college-age students. Of the seven broad factors identified within the CHC theoretical model, only crystallized intelligence and visual-spatial thinking demonstrate statistically significant direct effects on reading comprehension. Although crystallized intelligence consistently has been identified as playing an integral role in the reading comprehension of primary and secondary school-age students, this study represents the first time visual-spatial thinking has been found to have a statistically significant direct effect on reading comprehension, in any population. This study provides hypotheses to explain the effects of visual-spatial thinking on college-age students’ reading comprehension and offers instructional strategies to assist faculty in improving student learning in higher education settings

Pairwise balanced designs covered by bounded flats

We prove that for any $K$ and $d$, there exist, for all sufficiently large admissible $v$, a pairwise balanced design PBD$(v,K)$ of dimension $d$ for which all $d$-point-generated flats are bounded by a constant independent of $v$. We also tighten a prior upper bound for $K = \{3,4,5\}$, in which case there are no divisibility restrictions on the number of points. One consequence of this latter result is the construction of latin squares `covered' by small subsquares

Improving Mathematics: An Examination of the Effects of Specific Cognitive Abilities on College-age Students’ Mathematics Achievement

This study investigated the effects of general intelligence and seven specific cognitive abilities on college-age students’ mathematics achievement. The present investigation went beyond previous research by employing structural equation modeling. It also represents the first study to examine the direct and indirect effects of general and specific cognitive abilities, simultaneously, on the mathematics achievement of college-age students. A model developed using the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of intelligence was the theoretical model used in all analyses. Data from 1,054 college-age students who participated in the standardization of the Woodcock–Johnson III (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) were divided into a calibration sample set and validation sample set. The calibration data set was used for model testing and modification and the independent validation sample data set was used for model validation. The specific areas of intelligence demonstrating direct effects on the mathematics achievement dependent variable were Crystallized Intelligence and Fluid Reasoning. The effects of general intelligence were found to be indirect in the college-age sample. Implications for instruction and intervention to improve college student’s mathematics achievement are provided

Cape Vulture Gyps coprotheres caught in gin trap

No Abstrac