Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Small Individual Loans And Mental Health: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among South African Adults, Lia C. H. Fernald, Rita Hamad, Dean Karlan, Emily J. Ozer, Jonathan Zinman

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: In the developing world, access to small, individual loans has been variously hailed as a poverty-alleviation tool – in the context of "microcredit" – but has also been criticized as "usury" and harmful to vulnerable borrowers. Prior studies have assessed effects of access to credit on traditional economic outcomes for poor borrowers, but effects on mental health have been largely ignored.

Methods: Applicants who had previously been rejected (n = 257) for a loan (200% annual percentage rate – APR) from a lender in South Africa were randomly assigned to a "second-look" that encouraged loan officers to approve their …

How Well Can We Target Aid With Rapidly Collected Data? Empirical Results For Poverty Mapping From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

We compare commune-level poverty rankings in Cambodia based on three different methods: small-area estimation, principal component analysis using aggregate data, and interviews with local leaders. While they provide reasonably consistent rankings, the choice of the ranking method matters. In order to assess the potential losses from moving away from census-based poverty mapping, we used the concentration curve. Our calculation shows that about three-quarters of the potential gains from geographic targeting may be lost by using aggregate data. The usefulness of aggregate data in general would depend on the cost of data collection.

The Persistent Problem: Inequality, Difference, And The Challenge Of Development, Aseema Sinha, John Echeverri-Gent, Leslie Elliott Armijo, Marc Blecher, Daniel Brumberg, Valerie Bunce, Kiren A. Chaudhry, John W. Harbeson, Evelyne Huber, Bronwyn Leebaw, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Loren Ryter, Susan L. Woodward

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

This report highlights the complex, multidimensional nature of inequality in the era of globalization. It documents that despite the impressive strides by nations like China and India, absolute inequality between the richest and poorest countries is greater than ever before in history. It demonstrates that the rise of China and India creates a new dimension to the persistent problem of inequality.

Slides: Threats To Biological Diversity: Global, Continental, Local, J. Michael Scott

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: J. Michael Scott, U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Idaho

38 slides

Seeds Of Innovation, Omaha World-Herald

Scholarship of Metropolitan Mission

What an encouraging development a University of Nebraska at Omaha professor describes in a Midlands Voices essay today. UNO, she explains, is working with small-business owners in north Omaha to improve their computer and telecommunications skills.

As noted by Sajda Qureshi, an associate professor in UNO's College of Information Science and Technology, the project has benefited a variety of "microenterprises" in north Omaha. Among the different types of businesses helped: a delicatessen, tutoring services, a massage therapist, a cake decorator, a pet groomer, a modeling agency and a house for inmates re-entering society.

Assessment Of 2007 Client Outcomes For The Center For Driver's License Recovery & Employability, John Pawasarat, Lois M. Quinn

ETI Publications

In 2007 the Center for Driver’s License Recovery & Employability (CDLRE) began providing assistance on a referral basis to Milwaukee County residents with suspended and revoked driver’s licenses. The Center operates out of the Milwaukee Area Technical College downtown campus, with residents referred to the CDLRE by a network of over 25 community agencies, courts, and government offices. The CDLRE contracted with the Employment and Training Institute to provide an independent assessment of the client outcomes for the period from April through December 2007. The CDLRE successfully targeted a very high risk population. All 454 clients completing service in 2007 …

Report Card On African American And Minority Participation In Construction Trade Apprenticeships In The Milwaukee Area, Lois M. Quinn, Ruth Zubrensky

ETI Publications

This report provides racial/ethnicity and gender data on apprentices by construction trade joint apprenticeship committee, based on data provided by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards as of September 20, 2007. The report was prepared collaboratively by the Employment and Training Institute and the Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP. It examines apprenticeship data for the following trades: bricklayers, carpenters, cement masons, construction craft laborers, electricians, glazers, heat and frost insulators, ironworkers, operating engineers, painters, plumbers, roofers, sheet metal workers, sprinkler fitters, steamfitters, and tile setters.

The Mystery Of Capital Formation In Sub-Saharan Africa: Women, Property Rights And Customary Law, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

Economists such as Hernando De Soto have argued that clearly defined property rights are essential to capital formation and ultimately to economic growth and poverty alleviation. This article traces two impediments to the clear definition of property rights in the African context: customary law and the status of women. Both of these issues interfere with the attempt of African countries to rearticulate property law with the goal of capital formation. Constructive attempts to define property rights must address the problem of enforcement in under-resourced environments where changes may not be welcomed.

Approaches And Perspectives In The Studies Of China's Urban Poverty, Zhiming Cheng

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The paper reviews some research on urban poverty in China. This topic began to attract academic attention in mid- 1990s. In the marketization, the old socialist system in China, which included full employment and comprehensive social welfare for urban citizens, has been replaced by an emerging labor market and a socialized and partially privatized social security. The time lag between the old and establishing systems has thrown a large number of retrenched state workers and migrant workers into poverty and then concentrated the poor in particular areas or communities of city. There is impressive progress on identifying and measuring poverty, …

Corporate Social Responsibility For Solving The Housing Problem For The Poor In South Africa, Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman, Basheera Mia

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Poverty, Diet And Health Behaviours: A Quantitative And Qualitative Study Among Young Urbanised Women., Daniel Mccartney

Doctoral

Demographic, socio-economic, attitudinal, dietary, health behavioural and anthropometric data were collected from 221 “disadvantaged” and 74 “advantaged” women aged 18-35 years across Dublin, according to the provisions of a novel socio-economic sampling frame. Internal and external validation techniques established the dietary assessment method of choice and identified “valid” dietary reporters (n=216, 153 disadvantaged, 63 advantaged) among this sample. Five qualitative focus groups (n=5-8 per group) were also conducted among disadvantaged women to examine their diet and health behaviour choices. Lower intakes of fruit and vegetables (172g/d vs. 405g/d, p

Two-Sample Estimation Of Poverty Rates For Disabled People: An Application To Tanzania, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Estimating poverty measures for disabled people in developing countries is di cult, partly because relevant data are not available. We develop two methods to estimate poverty by the disability status of the household head. We extend the small-area estimation proposed by Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2002, 2003) so that we can run a regression on head's disability status even when such information is unavailable in the survey. We do so by aggregation and by moment adjusted two sample instrumental variable estimation. Our results from Tanzania show that both methods work well, and that disability is indeed associated with poverty.

Analysis Of The Impact Of The Changes In The Prices Of Rice And Fuel On Poverty In The Philippines, Celia M. Reyes, Alellie B. Sobreviñas, Joel Bancolita, Jeremy De Jesus

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

In 2008, prices of rice and fuel in the Philippines have dramatically increased following the trends in the global market. Although the movements in the farmgate (producer) and retail (consumer) prices of rice is fairly stable during the period January 2006 to December 2007, prices significantly increased starting January 2008 (Figure 1). The average retail prices of rice for the period January to September 2008, in fact, increased by 34.3 percent as compared to 3.7 percent growth in the previous year. Meanwhile, farmgate prices increased by 26.7 percent in January to September 2008 as compared to the previous year’s growth …

Open And Accessible: The Relationship Between Closures And Circulation In School Library Media Centers, Gail Dickinson, Karen Gavigan, Shana Pribesh

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

A hallmark of school library media best practice is for the library media center to be open and accessible to patron use before, during, and after the school day and throughout the entire school year. Anecdotal evidence and informal discussion among school library media specialists indicate that library media facilities are sometimes used for activities unrelated to the mission of the school library media program in the school. These activities may close the library media center to regular patron use for all or part of the school day. This study surveyed school library media specialists in two states and examined …