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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Behavioral Science Interventions Could Increase Snap Comprehension And Awareness Among Military Families, Colleen Heflin, Hannah Patnaik, Leonard M. Lopoo, Siobhan O'Keefe Nov 2023

Behavioral Science Interventions Could Increase Snap Comprehension And Awareness Among Military Families, Colleen Heflin, Hannah Patnaik, Leonard M. Lopoo, Siobhan O'Keefe

Population Health Research Brief Series

Food insecurity is more common among military families than the general population, and the transition from active service to civilian life is a time of heightened risk. The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) is designed to support food security among low-income families. Many eligible military and veteran families do not enroll in SNAP due to a lack of information, stigma, and administrative barriers. This brief highlights findings from a survey experiment conducted in 2022 and 2023 to assess how small changes to SNAP informational flyers, such as simplifying information provided about SNAP, highlighting that other veterans use SNAP, and emphasizing …


The Mundlak Spatial Estimator, Badi H. Baltagi Sep 2023

The Mundlak Spatial Estimator, Badi H. Baltagi

Center for Policy Research

The spatial Mundlak model first considered by Debarsy (2012) is an alternative to fixed effects and random effects estimation for spatial panel data models. Mundlak modelled the correlated random individual effects as a linear combination of the averaged regressors over time plus a random time-invariant error. This paper shows that if spatial correlation is present whether spatial lag or spatial error or both, the standard Mundlak result in panel data does not hold and random effects does not reduce to its fixed effects counterpart. However, using maximum likelihood one can still estimate these spatial Mundlak models and test the correlated …


Treatment For Mental Health And Substance Use: Spillovers To Police Safety, Monica Deza Sep 2023

Treatment For Mental Health And Substance Use: Spillovers To Police Safety, Monica Deza

Center for Policy Research

We study the effect of community access to mental health and substance use treatment on police officer safety, which we proxy with on-duty assaults on officers. Police officers often serve as first-responders to people experiencing mental health and substance use crises, which can place police officers at risk. Combining agency-level data on police officer on-duty assaults and county-level data on the number of treatment centers that offer mental health and substance use care, we estimate two-way fixed-effects regressions and find that an additional four centers per county (the average annual increase observed in our data) leads to a 1.3% reduction …


Covid-19 Has Strengthened The Relationship Between Alcohol Consumption And Domestic Violence, Monica Deza, Aaron Chalfin, Shooshan Danagoulian Sep 2023

Covid-19 Has Strengthened The Relationship Between Alcohol Consumption And Domestic Violence, Monica Deza, Aaron Chalfin, Shooshan Danagoulian

Center for Policy Research

A large body of evidence documents a link between alcohol consumption and violence involving intimate partners and close family members. Recent scholarship suggests that since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders, there has been a marked increase in domestic violence. This research considers an important mechanism behind the increase in domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic: an increase in the riskiness of alcohol consumption. We combine 911 call data with newly available high-resolution microdata on visits to bars and liquor stores in Detroit, MI and find that the strength of the relationship between visits to alcohol …


Unemployment, Alcohol, And Tobacco Use: Separating State Dependence From Unobserved Heterogeneity, Monica Deza Sep 2023

Unemployment, Alcohol, And Tobacco Use: Separating State Dependence From Unobserved Heterogeneity, Monica Deza

Center for Policy Research

Previous literature presents mixed evidence on the effect of alcohol consumption on labor market outcomes. On one hand, heavy alcohol consumption has been shown to have detrimental effects on labor market outcomes. On the other hand, moderate consumption is positively associated with wages and employment. Despite substantial reduced form evidence, previous literature has not been able to separately identify the causal pathways linking moderate versus heavy alcohol use to labor market performance due to the lack of natural experiments that only target moderate versus heavy drinking, as well as limitations of available structural methods that model state dependence and unobserved …


Aca Medicaid Expansions Did Not Significantly Improve Maternal Morbidity, Pinka Chatterji, Hanna Glenn, Sara Markowitz, Jennifer Karas Montez Aug 2023

Aca Medicaid Expansions Did Not Significantly Improve Maternal Morbidity, Pinka Chatterji, Hanna Glenn, Sara Markowitz, Jennifer Karas Montez

Population Health Research Brief Series

Rising rates of severe maternal morbidity in the U.S. highlight the unmet need for continuous and comprehensive health care for women before, during, and after pregnancy. This data slice summarizes findings from a study that tested whether ACA Medicaid expansions helped reduce severe maternal morbidity, including transfusion, ruptured uterus, unplanned hysterectomy, eclampsia, and the need for intensive care. Results show little evidence that the ACA expansions improved maternal morbidity, other than reducing the need for blood transfusions.


Moving Policies Toward Racial And Ethnic Equality: The Case Of The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Hugo B. Jales, Judith Liu, Norbert L. Wilson May 2023

Moving Policies Toward Racial And Ethnic Equality: The Case Of The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Hugo B. Jales, Judith Liu, Norbert L. Wilson

Center for Policy Research

We analyze the role played by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in alleviating or exacerbating inequality across racial and ethnic groups in food expenditures and in the resources needed to meet basic food needs (the “food resource gap”). To do this, we propose a simple framework that decomposes differences across groups in SNAP benefit transfer levels into three components: eligibility, participation, and generosity. This decomposition is then linked to differences in food expenditures and the food resource gap. Our results reveal that among the three components, differences in eligibility contribute the most to SNAP benefits differentials for Black and …


New York Camp Econometrics Xvii Program, Center For Policy Research Apr 2023

New York Camp Econometrics Xvii Program, Center For Policy Research

Camp Econometrics-Programs

No abstract provided.


The Two-Way Mundlak Estimator, Badi H. Baltagi Apr 2023

The Two-Way Mundlak Estimator, Badi H. Baltagi

Center for Policy Research

Mundlak (1978) shows that the fixed effects estimator is equivalent to the random effects estimator in the one-way error component model once the random individual effects are modeled as a linear function of all the averaged regressors over time. In the spirit of Mundlak, this paper shows that this result also holds for the two-way error component model once this individual and time effects are modeled as linear functions of all the averaged regressors across time and across individuals. Woolridge (2021) also shows that the two-way fixed effects estimator can be obtained as a pooled OLS with the regressors augmented …


Racial Disparities In School Poverty And Spending: Examining Allocations Within And Across Districts, Robert Bifulco, Sarah Souders Jan 2023

Racial Disparities In School Poverty And Spending: Examining Allocations Within And Across Districts, Robert Bifulco, Sarah Souders

Center for Policy Research

Using recently available school-level finance data, we compare exposure to low-income classmates and average per pupil spending for black, Hispanic, and white students. Using within metropolitan area comparisons, we find that the typical black and Hispanic students attend schools with much higher proportions of low-income students than the typical white student, and that per pupil spending in the typical black and Hispanic students’ schools is higher than in the typical white student’s school. Drawing on estimates of the additional spending required to provide low-income students equal educational opportunity, we find that it is unlikely that the additional spending in schools …