Oral History: Kathleen Iannello

This research essay captures the reality of what it means to assimilate into American culture as an Italian and how the dynamic of identifying with a certain heritage has changed throughout the years. For my project I interviewed Kathleen Iannello, the granddaughter of two Italian American immigrants. By talking with Kathleen I was able to a gain a sense of the hardships and sacrifices her family made and connect them to the information I had learned in class

Motivating Politicians: The Impacts of Monetary Incentives on Quality and Performance

Recent studies have emphasized the importance of the quality of politicians for good government and consequently economic performance. But if the quality of leadership matters, then understanding what motivates individuals to become politicians and perform competently in office becomes a central question. In this paper, we examine whether higher wages attract better quality politicians and improve political performance using exogenous variation in the salaries’ of local legislators across Brazil’s municipal governments. The analysis exploits discontinuities in wages across municipalities induced by a constitutional amendment defining caps on the salary of local legislatures according to municipal population. Our main findings show that increases in salaries not only attracts more candidates, but more educated ones. Elected officials are in turn more educated and stay in office longer. Higher salaries also increase legislative productivity as measured by the number of bills submitted and approved, and the provision of public goods.politician salary, quality, political agency

Patients Under Pressure: Profiles of How Families Affected by Cancer Are Faring in the Recession

Describes how the loss of jobs and health insurance affected six cancer patients and their families. Examines barriers to maintaining health coverage, purchasing non-group coverage, and limitations on public coverage

Reelection Incentives and Political Corruption: Evidence from Brazilian Audit Reports

As part of a recent anti-corruption campaign, the Brazilian government began to audit the municipal expenditure of federally-transferred funds. Using these audit reports, we construct a unique data set of political corruption to test whether reelection incentives affect the level of corruption in a municipality. Consistent with a political economy agency model, we find that mayors who are in their second and final term are significantly more corrupt than first-term mayors. In particular, second-term mayors on average divert, R$188,431.4 more than first-term mayors, which is approximately 4 percent of the total amount transferred to municipalities. We also find much more pronounced effects among municipalities where the costs of rent-extraction are lower, and the density of pivotal voters is higher. Our results also illustrate an important trade-off: second-term mayors, while more corrupt, provide a higher level of public goods. As Brazil and other countries continue their decentralization process, our findings promote the need for a better understanding of how local institutions can help reduce the incentives for corruption.Political Economy,

Vote-Buying and Reciprocity

While vote-buying is common, little is known about how politicians determine who to target. We argue that vote-buying can be sustained by an internalized norm of reciprocity. Receiving money engenders feelings of obligation. Combining survey data on vote-buying with an experiment-based measure of reciprocity, we show that politicians target reciprocal individuals. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of social preferences in determining political behavior.vote-buying, reciprocity, redistributive politics, voting, social preferences

Brokering Votes With Information Spread Via Social Networks

Throughout much of the developing world, politicians rely on political brokers to buy votes prior to elections. We investigate how social networks help facilitate vote-buying exchanges by combining village network data of brokers and voters with broker reports of vote buying. We show that networks diffuse politically-relevant information about voters to brokers who leverage it to target voters. In particular, we find that brokers target reciprocal voters who are not registered to their party and about whom they can hear more information through their social network. These results highlight the importance of information diffusion through social networks for vote buying and ultimately for political outcomes

MEASURING THE INCOME GENERATING POTENTIAL OF LAND IN RURAL MEXICO

This paper measures the potential of land to generate income and establishes the contexts under which access to land can reduce poverty. Using Mexican household data, we apply nonparametric regression methods to estimate and graphically explore the relationship between land and welfare. Results suggest that the marginal value of land depends on both the complementary and contextual assets of the poor.Land Economics/Use,

Corrupting Learning: Evidence from Missing Federal Education Funds in Brazil

While cross-country analysis suggests that corruption hinders economic growth, we have little evidence on the mechanisms that link corruption to long-run economic development. We provide micro-evidence on the consequences of corruption for the quality of education. We use data from the auditing of Brazil’s local governments to construct objective measures of corruption involving educational block grants transferred from the central government to municipalities. Using variation in the incidence of corruption across municipalities and controlling for students’, schools’ and municipal characteristics, we find that corruption significantly reduces the school performance of primary school students. Students residing in municipalities where corruption in education was detected score 0.35 standard deviations less on standardized tests, and have significantly higher dropout and failure rates. We also provide evidence on the mechanisms that link corruption and mismanagement to learning and school attainment. The results are consistent with corruption directly affecting economic growth through the reduction of human capital accumulation. JEL Codes: D73, I21, H72

Exposing the Myth of a Drug Free Rural Ireland

It can be said without hesitation that drugs are currently an established feature of modem Irish society. In the past, many believed them to be solely an urban phenomenon but nowadays, they extend their reach on all areas, even the most mral parts of this island. This dissertation sets out to prove this whilst also placing a special emphasis on adolescent drug abuse. Information was sought from a variety of sources including literature, interviews and perhaps most importantly, through the surveying of more than one hundred adolescents. The results are alarming to say the least. Approximately one in three teenagers are dabbling with drugs, with cannabis being the dmg of preference in the vast majority of instances. Also, it is worth noting that the average age for commencing drug use aias young as thirteen to fourteen years. In addition to this, criminal activities such as stealing and distributing drugs for profit are the most popular means by which money is acquired to fund these activities. Furthermore, the survey indicates that it is most commonly friends who supply drugs to teenagers or, in one in ten cases, a family member. Leading on from this, previous research and information acquired from a series of interviews indicate that many of these young adults may, in the near future, proceed to experiment with more dangerous Class A drugs such as cocaine. A number of recommendations have been suggested so as to counteract this ever-growing trend. For instance, it is proposed that drug awareness education commences at an earlier age, that lectures are conducted by people who have had first hand experience with drugs and also, that parents play a more pro-active role in tackling the problem as opposed to ‘turning a blind eye’ as many currently choose to do. Many may not agree with these proposals but one thing is for certain, changes must be implemented immediately if this problem is to be prevented from escalating out of all control

Exposing the Myth of a Drug Free Rural Ireland

It can be said without hesitation that drugs are currently an established feature of modem Irish society. In the past, many believed them to be solely an urban phenomenon but nowadays, they extend their reach on all areas, even the most mral parts of this island. This dissertation sets out to prove this whilst also placing a special emphasis on adolescent drug abuse. Information was sought from a variety of sources including literature, interviews and perhaps most importantly, through the surveying of more than one hundred adolescents. The results are alarming to say the least. Approximately one in three teenagers are dabbling with drugs, with cannabis being the dmg of preference in the vast majority of instances. Also, it is worth noting that the average age for commencing drug use aias young as thirteen to fourteen years. In addition to this, criminal activities such as stealing and distributing drugs for profit are the most popular means by which money is acquired to fund these activities. Furthermore, the survey indicates that it is most commonly friends who supply drugs to teenagers or, in one in ten cases, a family member. Leading on from this, previous research and information acquired from a series of interviews indicate that many of these young adults may, in the near future, proceed to experiment with more dangerous Class A drugs such as cocaine. A number of recommendations have been suggested so as to counteract this ever-growing trend. For instance, it is proposed that drug awareness education commences at an earlier age, that lectures are conducted by people who have had first hand experience with drugs and also, that parents play a more pro-active role in tackling the problem as opposed to ‘turning a blind eye’ as many currently choose to do. Many may not agree with these proposals but one thing is for certain, changes must be implemented immediately if this problem is to be prevented from escalating out of all control