Auntie knows best? public broadcasters and current affairs knowledge

Public service broadcasters (PSBs) are a central part of national news media landscapes. In many countries, PSBs are the first choice of citizens when it comes to news providers. And in perhaps more countries still, PSBs are thought of as specialists in provision of hard news. We test this proposition here using survey data from a large crossnational survey involving indicators of current affairs knowledge and media consumption. Specifically, we examine whether exposure to public versus commercial news influences the knowledge citizens possess about current affairs, both domestically and internationally. We also test, using propensity score analysis, whether there is variation across PSBs in this regard. Results indicate that compared to commercial news, watching PSB has a net positive influence on knowledge of hard news, though not all PSBs are equally effective in contributing to knowledge acquisition. This knowledge gap between PSB and commercial news media consumption appears to be mitigated by factors such as de jure independence,proportion of public financing, and audience share

There’s no such thing as a free lunch:evidence of altruism and agency from household expenditure responses to child nutrition programs

Many countries provide transfers for particular client groups such as children and often such transfers are in-kind rather than cash. However, this may, at least partially, crowd out private expenditures on the goods in question because they reduce the incentive for other individuals, like parents, to make altruistic transfers. They are often made to one household member on behalf of another so there may also be agency concerns: the recipient may divert some of the transfer away from the intended beneficiary. This paper throws light on these issues using three nutrition programs for children in UK households: free lunch at school for children from poor households; free milk to poor households with pre-school children; and free milk at day-care for pre-school children in attendance regardless of parental income. We provide difference in difference estimates based on a welfare reform and on variation in the timing of school holidays. These estimates are broadly consistent with estimates of a structural model that is identified using the same welfare reform. This gives us confidence in the interpretation of our estimates that the structural model provides but the simple difference-in-difference cannot

Childhood Abuse and Welfare Use

Policies aimed at reducing welfare use focus solely on adults, yet welfare users very often report experiences of childhood abuse. Such abuse is known to have long-term psychological effects and may set the stage for later welfare use. This study uses a random sample of poor women to determine how a history of childhood abuse relates to the probability of receiving cash and in-kind assistance over a five-year period. It also investigate whether childhood abuse correlates with the length of receipt among program users. Women experiencing both physical and sexual abuse during childhood were 16–25 percentage points more likely than others to use both cash and in-kind programs as adults. Conditional on program use, there was no relation of childhood abuse to the extent of program use during the study period. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005welfare programs, domestic violence, child abuse, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Food Stamp program, I3, I12, J1,