Long-Term Health Effects on the Next Generation of Ramadan Fasting During Pregnancy

Each year, many pregnant women fast from dawn to sunset during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Medical theory suggests that this may have negative long-term health effects on their offspring. Building upon the work of Almond and Mazumder (2008), and using Indonesian crosssectional data, I show that people who were exposed to Ramadan fasting during their mother's pregnancy have a poorer general health and are sick more often than people who were not exposed. This effect is especially pronounced among older people, who, when exposed, also report health problems more often that are indicative of coronary heart problems and type 2 diabetes. The exposed are a bit smaller in body size and weigh less. Among Muslims born during, and in the months after, Ramadan, the share of males is lower, which is most likely to be caused by death before birth. I show that these effects are unlikely to be an artifact of common health shocks, correlated to the occurrence of Ramadan, or o f fasting mainly occurring among women who, irrespective of fasting or not, would have had unhealthier children anyway.health, Ramadan, pregnancy, nutrition, Indonesia

The effect of peer socioeconomic status on student achievement: a meta-analysis

Previous studies on the effects on students' test scores of their peers' socioeconomic status (SES) reported varying results. A meta-regression analysis including 30 studies on the topic shows that the compositional effect that researchers find is strongly related to how they measure SES and to their model choice. If they measure SES dichotomously (e.g. free lunch eligibility) or include several average SES-variables in one model, they find smaller effects than when using a composite that captures several SES-dimensions. Composition measured at cohort/school level is associated with smaller effects than composition measured at class level. Researchers estimating compositional effects without controlling for prior achievement or not taking into account the potential for omitted variables bias, risk overestimating the effect. Correcting for a large set of not well thought-over covariates may lead to an underestimation of the compositional effect, by artificially explaining away the effect. Little evidence was found that effect sizes differ with sample characteristics such as test type (language vs. math) and country. Estimates for a hypothetical study, making a number of "ideal" choices, suggest that peer SES may be an important determinant of academic achievement.

Will ageing lead to a higher real exchange rate for the Netherlands?

Long-term projections for the Netherlands indicate that demand for nontradables ââ¬â e.g. health care services ââ¬â will increase relative to supply due to population ageing. If this leads to higher future real exchanges rates this will erode the return of the savings currently made to prepare for ageing. This paper explores the magnitude of potential price effects using a modified version of the ‘two country, four commodity framework’ developed by Obstfeld and Rogoff (2005) to explore the exchange rate effects of the balance of payments reversal in the US. When these price effects are substantial, this may have serious consequences for policies to enhance national saving in the Netherlands.

Gender peer effects in university: Evidence from a randomized experiment

Recent studies for primary and secondary education find positive effects of the share of girls in the classroom on achievement of boys and girls. This study examines whether these results can be extrapolated to post-secondary education. We conduct an experiment in which the shares of girls in workgroups for first year students in economics and business are manipulated and students are randomly assigned to these groups. Boys tend to postpone their dropout decision when surrounded by more girls, and there is also a modest reduction in early absenteeism. On the other hand, boys perform worse on courses with high math content when assigned to a group with many girls. Overall, however, we fail to find substantial gender peer effects on achievement. This in spite of the fact that students in groups with many girls help each other more often and study together more often.Field experiment, Peer effects, University students

Peer Ethnicity and Achievement: a Meta-analysis Into the Compositional Effect

This study reports a meta-analysis on the effects of ethnic minority share in school on achievement test scores. Best evidence from the studies that have appeared thus far on this topic shows that these compositional effects appear small in general, but may be larger when the ethnic minority group is African Americans in the USA, than when the minority group consists of immigrants. A high share of students from an ethnic minority group seems to affect the achievement from students belonging to the same ethnic group more, than the achievement of students belonging to the ethnic majority or to other ethnic minority groups. Effects of the share of immigrants on test scores of ethnic majority students even seem to be close to zero. Several robustness checks confirm our results. The review concludes with a discussion of implications for research and policy practice.academic achievement, meta-analysis, racial composition, school segregation, ethnic groups

Fasting During Pregnancy and Children's Academic Performance

We consider the effects of daytime fasting by pregnant women during the lunar month of Ramadan on their children's test scores at age seven. Using English register data, we find that scores are .05 to .08 standard deviations lower for Pakistani and Bangladeshi students exposed to Ramadan in early pregnancy. These estimates are downward biased to the extent that Ramadan is not universally observed. We conclude that the effects of prenatal investments on test scores are comparable to many conventional educational interventions but are likely to be more cost effective and less subject to "fade out".educational outcomes, pregnancy, fasting

Fasting During Pregnancy and Children's Academic Performance

We consider the effects of daytime fasting by pregnant women during the lunar month of Ramadan on their children's test scores at age seven. Using English register data, we find that scores are .05 to .08 standard deviations lower for Pakistani and Bangladeshi students exposed to Ramadan in early pregnancy. These estimates are downward biased to the extent that Ramadan is not universally observed. We conclude that the effects of prenatal investments on test scores are comparable to many conventional educational interventions but are likely to be more cost effective and less subject to "fade out".

Purchase behavior of consumers in emerging markets

This thesis consists of three essays regarding the purchase behavior of consumers in emerging markets (EMs). The first essay focuses on one of the most important issues in marketing, namely pricing. A comprehensive analysis of price elasticities is conducted for a large set of brands and categories in China. The essay presents a framework for the moderating effect of category and brand factors, some of which specific to an EM setting, which is then empirically tested. In addition, it documents the relative importance of price versus three other key marketing instruments (advertising, distribution, and line length) in an EM. The second essay studies whether Chinese consumers attach different quality beliefs and/or uncertainties to global versus local brands, and investigates how important quality and uncertainty are in driving brand choice, for these brands. Moreover, differences across consumers with different geographic and sociodemographic profiles are explored with respect to both their global versus local brand quality (uncertainty), as well as to the importance of quality (uncertainty) and other marketing mix instruments in brand choice. The third essay looks at how the rise of e-commerce in grocery affects brand performance. It formally shows how a brand’s total (online plus off line) sales change as the fraction of groceries sold online goes up, and identifies brand and category factors that drive this evolution, thereby providing insights to brand managers on how to benefit from this online trend

Ageing and international capital flows

Ageing will have an impact on both savings and investment, potentially leading to substantial international capital flows. This CPB Document provides a comprehensive overview, by considering various questions. What are the differences in the demographic process of ageing across countries? Does ageing lead to a capital outflow? How mobile is capital? What are the effects of a lower rate of return on (pension) savings?