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Colby College

Working Papers in Economics

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Local Distributional Effects Of Government Cash Transfers In Chile, Claudio A. Agostini, Philip H. Brown May 2007

Local Distributional Effects Of Government Cash Transfers In Chile, Claudio A. Agostini, Philip H. Brown

Working Papers in Economics

Despite rapid economic growth and poverty reduction, inequality in Chile has remained high and remarkably constant over the last 20 years, prompting academic and public interest in the subject. Due to data limitations, however, research on inequality in Chile has concentrated on the national and regional levels. The impact of cash subsidies to poor households on local inequality is thus not well understood. Using poverty-mapping methods to asses this impact, we find heterogeneity in the effectiveness of regional and municipal governments in reducing inequality via poverty-reduction transfers, suggesting that alternative targeting regimes may complement current practice in aiding the poor.

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Spatial Inequality In Chile, Claudio A. Agostini, Philip H. Brown Feb 2007

Spatial Inequality In Chile, Claudio A. Agostini, Philip H. Brown

Working Papers in Economics

Despite success in reducing poverty over the last twenty years, inequality in Chile has remained virtually unchanged, making Chile one of the least equal countries in the world. High levels of inequality have been shown to hamper further reductions in poverty as well as economic growth and local inequality has been shown to affect such outcomes as violence and health. The study of inequality at the local level is thus crucial for understanding the economic well-being of a country. Local measures of inequality have been difficult to obtain, but recent theoretical advances have enabled the combination of survey and census …

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Religion And Subjective Well-Being Among China’S Elderly Population, Philip H. Brown, Brian Tierney Dec 2006

Religion And Subjective Well-Being Among China’S Elderly Population, Philip H. Brown, Brian Tierney

Working Papers in Economics

Evidence from developed and developing countries alike demonstrates a strongly positive relationship between religiosity and happiness, particularly for women and particularly among the elderly. Using survey data from the oldest old in China, we find a strong negative relationship between religious participation and subjective well-being in a rich multivariate logistic framework that controls for demographics, health and disabilities, living arrangements and marital status, wealth and income, lifestyle and social networks, and location. In contrast to other studies, we also find that religion has a larger effect on subjective well-being on men than women.

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Candidate Quality And Voter Response In U.S. House Elections, Walter J. Stone, Nathan J. Hadley, Rolfe D. Peterson, Cherie D. Maestas, L. Sandy Maisel Sep 2006

Candidate Quality And Voter Response In U.S. House Elections, Walter J. Stone, Nathan J. Hadley, Rolfe D. Peterson, Cherie D. Maestas, L. Sandy Maisel

Working Papers in Economics

We propose and test the implications of a two-dimensional concept of candidate quality in U.S. House elections. Strategic quality is composed of the skills and resources necessary to wage an effective campaign; personal quality is composed of the characteristics most ordinary citizens value in their leaders and representatives, such as personal integrity and dedication to public service. We employ district informants in studies of the 1998 and 2002 congressional elections to measure these qualities in candidates, and we merge mass survey data with the district informant indicators to assess constituents’ awareness and evaluation of House candidates, and voting choice. We …

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Media Coverage And Charitable Giving After The 2004 Tsunami, Philip H. Brown, Jessica H. Minty Jun 2006

Media Coverage And Charitable Giving After The 2004 Tsunami, Philip H. Brown, Jessica H. Minty

Working Papers in Economics

Media coverage of humanitarian crises is widely believed to influence charitable giving, yet this assertion has received little empirical scrutiny. Using Internet donations after the 2004 tsunami as a case study in a tobit framework, we show that media coverage of disasters increases charitable donations, with an additional minute of nightly news coverage increasing donations by 0.036 standard deviations from the mean. We repeat the analysis using instrumental variables in a tobit model to account for endogeneity, and the estimates are unchanged. We also show that the magnitude and sign of media impact vary by news source and relief agency.

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Globalization, Agency, And Institutional Innovation: The Rise Of Public-Private Partnerships In Global Governance, Liliana B. Andonova Mar 2006

Globalization, Agency, And Institutional Innovation: The Rise Of Public-Private Partnerships In Global Governance, Liliana B. Andonova

Working Papers in Economics

Public and private actors increasingly cooperate in global governance, a realm previously reserved for states and intergovernmental organizations (IOs). This trend raises fascinating theoretical questions. What explains the rise in public-private institutions and their role in international politics? Who leads such institutional innovation and why? To address the questions, this paper develops a theory of the political demand and supply of public-private institutions and specifies the conditions under which IOs and non-state actors would cooperate, and states would support this public-private cooperation. The observable implications of the theoretical argument are evaluated against the broad trends in public-private cooperation and in …

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Meeting The Standards: An Analysis Of Eight Grade Educational Assesment Test Scores In Maine, Michael Donihue, Joseph Mattos, Caroline Theoharides, Charlotte Tiffany Jan 2006

Meeting The Standards: An Analysis Of Eight Grade Educational Assesment Test Scores In Maine, Michael Donihue, Joseph Mattos, Caroline Theoharides, Charlotte Tiffany

Working Papers in Economics

This paper examines the impact of socioeconomic factors on eighth grade achievement test scores in the face of federal and state initiatives for educational reform in Maine. We use student-level data over a five year period to provide a framework for understanding the policy implications of these initiatives. We model performance on standardized tests using a seemingly unrelated regressions approach and then determine the likelihood of meeting the standards defined by the adequate yearly progress requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and Maine Learning Results initiatives. Our results indicate that the key factors influencing a student’s test scores …

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Incumbency Reconsidered: Prospects, Strategic Entry, And Incumbent Quality In U.S. House Elections, Walter J. Stone, Sarah Fulton, Cherie D. Maestas, L. Sandy Maisel Mar 2005

Incumbency Reconsidered: Prospects, Strategic Entry, And Incumbent Quality In U.S. House Elections, Walter J. Stone, Sarah Fulton, Cherie D. Maestas, L. Sandy Maisel

Working Papers in Economics

Efforts to estimate the magnitude of the incumbency effect in U.S. House elections and assess its political meaning have been complicated by two omitted-variables problems. First, in the absence of an adequate measure of incumbent prospects, estimates of the magnitude of the incumbency effect fail to control for selection effects associated with the decision incumbents make about whether to run for reelection. Strategic incumbents enter races they think they can win and withdraw when they expect to lose. The consequence is an upward bias in estimates of incumbents’ electoral advantages. Second, the normative implications of high reelection rates cannot be …

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