Economic Decision-making in Poverty Depletes Behavioral Control

Economic theory and common sense suggest that time preference can cause or per- petuate poverty. Might poverty also or instead cause impatient or impulsive behavior? This paper reports a randomized lab experiment and a partially randomized field ex- periment, both in India, and analysis of the American Time Use Survey. In all three studies, poverty is associated with diminished behavioral control. The primary contri- bution is to isolate the direction of causality from poverty to behavior; three theoretical mechanisms from psychology cannot be deffinitively separated. One supported expla- nation is that poverty, by making economic decision-making more difficult for the poor, depletes cognitive control.impatient, impulsive behavior, poverty, psychology, cognative control

WHO IS THE IDENTIFIABLE VICTIM?--CASTE INTERACTS WITH SYMPATHY IN INDIA

Earlier studies have documented an “identifiable victim effect”-- people donate more to help individual people than to groups. Evidence suggests that this is in part due to an emotional reaction to the identified recipients, who generate more sympathy. However, stereotype research has shown that low-ranking groups are often not seen sympathetically; indeed stigmatized groups can be targets of “dehumanized” perception, perceived with disgust. We conducted an internet survey experiment among Indian participants, crossing the identification treatment with the group membership of the recipient. We indicate group membership of identified recipients subtly, with names that connote a social rank. We found an identifiable recipient effect for generically Indian, high caste, and Muslim recipients, but the effect was reversed for low caste recipients. Participants were as willing to donate to statistical low caste recipients as to statistical high caste recipients, but were less willing to donate to identified low caste recipients.However, an identifiable victim effect was seen for all recipient groups among participants open to a love marriage, a coarse indicator of rejecting caste hierarchy in favor of shared humanity. To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating that the identifiable victim effect interacts with the identity of the victim.identifiable victim effect; stereotypes; out-groups; caste; Dalit; pro-social behavior; India

Predicting the Diffusion of Next Generation 9-1-1 in the Commonwealth of Virginia: An Application Using the Deployment of Wireless E9-1-1 Technologies

This study examines the deployment of Wireless E9-1-1 Phase One and Wireless E9-1-1 Phase Two as a diffusion of innovation. The research method used in this study is a cross-sectional study employing secondary data in a discriminant function analysis. The study population is Virginia units of local governments (95 counties and 39 cities) that had not deployed Wireless E9-1-1 Phase One or Wireless E9-1-1 Phase Two as of January 1, 2001. The period of time included in this study is from 2001 to 2006. The purpose of the study is to assess the overall accuracy of the three principle theories of policy innovation adoption: diffusion, internal determinants, and unified theory, which are variations of the fundamental diffusion theory, in predicting the deployment of wireless E9-1-1 by Virginia units of local government. This assessment was conducted by identifying Virginia specific variables from models associated with these policy innovation theories to determine the best performing model for the deployment of Wireless E9-1-1 throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Virginia specific variables utilized in this study are: Wealth, Population, Fiscal Health, Dedicated Funding, Financial Dependency, Urbanization, Regionalism, and Proximity to Interstate. Dedicated Funding and Regionalism had the largest absolute size of correlation among the predictor variables for the deployment of Wireless E9-1-1 Phase One and Wireless E9-1-1 Phase Two, thus generating the best performing model. This information will provide the basis from which to develop a statewide comprehensive policy and plan for Next Generation 9-1-1 and will help provide an answer to the question of when and how governments get involved in designing and implementing a 9-1-1 emergency service network

Open Defecation and Anemia in Children: The Case of Nepal

Anemia is typically thought of as a nutritional outcome, with a corresponding policy focus on improving nutrient intake. PRC faculty research associates Diane Coffey, Michael Geruso, and Dean Spears convincingly show that the disease environment affects nutrient absorption. Therefore, interventions to address anemia should also focus on reducing parasitic infections that are transmitted through open defecation. They make the case that policy makers interested in reducing anemia in developing countries should also prioritize reducing open defecation.Population Research Cente

Additively-separable and rank-discounted variable-population social welfare functions: A characterization

Economic policy evaluations require social welfare functions for variable-size populations. Two important candidates are critical-level generalized utilitarianism (CLGU) and rank-discounted critical-level generalized utilitarianism, which was recently characterized by Asheim and Zuber (2014) (AZ). AZ introduce a novel axiom, existence of egalitarian equivalence (EEE). First, we show that, under some uncontroversial criteria for a plausible social welfare relation, EEE suffices to rule out the Repugnant Conclusion of population ethics (without AZ’s other novel axioms). Second, we provide a new characterization of CLGU: AZ’s set of axioms is equivalent to CLGU when EEE is replaced by the axiom same-number independence

Calibrating variable-value population ethics

Variable-Value axiologies propose solutions to the challenges of population ethics. These views avoid Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion, while satisfying some weak instances of the Mere Addition principle (for example, at small population sizes). We apply calibration methods to Variable-Value views while assuming: first, some very weak instances of Mere Addition, and, second, some plausible empirical assumptions about the size and welfare of the intertemporal world population. We find that Variable-Value views imply conclusions that should seem repugnant to anyone who opposes Total Utilitarianism due to the Repugnant Conclusion. So, any wish to avoid repugnant conclusions is not a good reason to choose a Variable-Value view. More broadly, these calibrations teach us something about the effort to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. Our results join a recent literature arguing that prior efforts to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion hinge on inessential features of the formalization of repugnance. Some of this effort may therefore be misplaced

Egyptians, Aliens, and Okies: Against the Sum of Averages

Grill (2023) defends the Sum of Averages View (SAV), on which the value of a population is found by summing the average lifetime welfare of each generation or birth cohort. A major advantage of SAV, according to Grill, is that it escapes the Egyptology objection to average utilitarianism. But, we argue, SAV escapes only the most literal understanding of this objection, since it still allows the value of adding a life to depend on facts about other, intuitively irrelevant lives. Moreover, SAV has a decisive drawback not shared with either average or total utilitarianism: it can evaluate an outcome in which every individual is worse off as better overall, even when exactly the same people exist in both outcomes. These problems, we argue, afflict not only Grill’s view but any view that uses a sum of subpopulation averages, apart from the limiting cases of average and total utilitarianism

Share the Sugar

We provide a general argument against value incomparability, based on a new style of impossibility result. In particular, we show that, against plausible background assumptions, value incomparability creates an incompatibility between two very plausible principles for ranking lotteries: a weak "negative dominance" principle (to the effect that Lottery 1 can be better than Lottery 2 only if some possible outcome of Lottery 1 is better than some possible outcome of Lottery 2) and a weak form of ex ante Pareto (to the effect that, if Lottery 1 gives an unambiguously better prospect to some individuals than Lottery 2, and equally good prospects to everyone else, then Lottery 1 is better than Lottery 2). After spelling out our results, and the arguments based on them, we consider which principle the proponent of incomparability ought to reject

A Strategic Approach to Public Health Workforce Development and Capacity Building

In February 2010, CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD), and Tuberculosis (TB) Prevention (NCHHSTP) formally institutionalized workforce development and capacity building (WDCB) as one of six overarching goals in its 2010–2015 Strategic Plan. Annually, workforce team members finalize an action plan that lays the foundation for programs to be implemented for NCHHSTP’s workforce that year. This paper describes selected WDCB programs implemented by NCHHSTP during the last 4 years in the three strategic goal areas: (1) attracting, recruiting, and retaining a diverse and sustainable workforce; (2) providing staff with development opportunities to ensure the effective and innovative delivery of NCHHSTP programs; and (3) continuously recognizing performance and achievements of staff and creating an atmosphere that promotes a healthy work–life balance. Programs have included but are not limited to an Ambassador Program for new hires, career development training for all staff, leadership and coaching for mid-level managers, and a Laboratory Workforce Development Initiative for laboratory scientists. Additionally, the paper discusses three overarching areas—employee communication, evaluation and continuous review to guide program development, and the implementation of key organizational and leadership structures to ensure accountability and continuity of programs. Since 2010, many lessons have been learned regarding strategic approaches to scaling up organization-wide public health workforce development and capacity building. Perhaps the most important is the value of ensuring the high-level strategic prioritization of this issue, demonstrating to staff and partners the importance of this imperative in achieving NCHHSTP’s mission

Near-universal marriage, early childbearing, and low fertility: India's alternative fertility transition

Objective: To compare fertility in India to both low-to-middle-income and high-income countries (LMICs and HICs) and describe the patterns that have accompanied India's transition to low fertility. Methods: We use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), the United Nations (UN), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to observe factors associated with fertility decline in 36 Indian states and 76 countries. Results: Although fertility in India has declined to levels similar to HICs, women's entry into marriage and initiation of childbearing are more in line with patterns found in LMICs. The vast majority of women in India (97Š) are married by age 30, and their average age at first birth is only 21.3 years old. In spite of these patterns, average fertility has declined in India as a result of earlier termination of childbearing. Among more recent cohorts, fewer women progressed to higher-order births and about half of women obtained a sterilization by age 35. Conclusions: India has reached low fertility by mechanisms outside the traditional indicators of fertility decline. In contrast to countries that have achieved low fertility through delayed age at first birth, women in India have continued to enter unions and bear children early, lowered their age at last birth, and increasingly ended their fertility via sterilization following the birth of two children. Contribution: Evidence from India reveals an alternative pathway to low fertility, highlighting the limitations of traditional socioeconomic indicators for explaining fertility decline