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Does Money Matter? The Effects of Cash Transfers on Child Development in Rural Ecuador
A large body of research indicates that child development is sensitive to early‐life environments, so that poor children are at higher risk for poor cognitive and behavioral outcomes. These developmental outcomes are important determinants of success in adulthood. Yet, remarkably little is known about whether poverty‐alleviation programs improve children’s developmental outcomes. We examine how a government‐run cash transfer program for poor mothers in rural Ecuador influenced the development of young children. Random assignment at the parish level is used to identify program effects. Our data include a set of measures of cognitive ability that are not typically included in experimental or quasi‐experimental studies of the impact of cash transfers on child well‐being, as well as a set of physical health measures that may be related to developmental outcomes. The cash transfer program had positive, although modest, effects on the physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development of the poorest children in our sample.
Journal Article
The politics of preference
Sunita Parikh examines the history and fate of affirmative action programs in two ethnically heterogeneous democracies, the United States and India. Affirmative action programs in the United States represent a controversial policy about which the American public feel at best ambivalence and at worst hostility, while in India the expansion of reservation policies in recent years has led to riots and contributed to the fall of governments. And yet these policies were not particularly controversial when they were introduced. How the policy traveled from these auspicious beginnings to its current predicament can best be understood, according to Parikh, by exploring the changing political conditions under which it was introduced, expanded, and then challenged.
Although they are in many respects very different countries, India and the United States are important countries in which to study the implementation of ascriptive policies like affirmative action, according to Parikh. They are both large, heterogeneous societies with democratic political systems in which previously excluded groups were granted benefits by the majorities that had historically oppressed them. Parikh argues that these policies were the product of democratic politics--which required political parties to mobilize existing groups as voters--and the ethnically heterogeneous nature of Indian and U.S. society--where ethnic markers are particularly salient sources of identification as groups. Affirmative action in both countries was introduced because it could be used to solidify and expand electoral coalitions by giving benefits to defined minority groups, according to Parikh. As the policy became better known, it became more disliked by non-targeted groups, and it was no longer an appeal which was cost free for politicians.
This book will be of interest to social scientists concerned with race and ethnic relations and with the comparative study of political and social systems.
Sunita Parikh is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Columbia University.
eBook
The convergence of science and governance
Daniel M. Fox gives an incisive assessment of the critical collaboration between researchers and public officials that has recently emerged to evaluate the effectiveness and comparative effectiveness of health services. Drawing on research as well as his first-hand experience in policymaking, Fox's broad-ranging analysis describes how politics, public finance and management, and advances in research methods made this convergence of science and governance possible. The book then widens into a sweeping history of central issues in research on health services and health governance during the past century. Returning to the past decade, Fox looks closely at how policy informed by research has been made and implemented in public programs that cover pharmaceutical drugs in most American states. This case study illuminates how politics has informed the questions, methods, and reception of research on health services, and also sheds new light on how research has informed politics and public management. Looking toward the future, Fox describes the promise, as well as the fragility, of the convergence of science and governance, making his book essential reading for those struggling to revise health care in the United States over the next several years.
eBook
The war on welfare : family, poverty, and politics in modern America
Why did the War on Poverty give way to the war on welfare? Many in the United States saw the welfare reforms of 1996 as the inevitable result of twelve years of conservative retrenchment in American social policy, but there is evidence that the seeds of this change were sown long before the Reagan Revolution- and not necessarily by the Right. Historian Marisa Chappell provides a fresh look at the national debate about poverty, welfare, and economic rights from the 1960s through the mid-1990s. In Chappell's telling, we experience the debate over welfare from multiple perspectives, including those of conservatives of several types, liberal antipoverty experts, national liberal organizations, labor, government officials, feminists of various persuasions, and poor women themselves.
Book
Condom nation : the U.S. government's sex education campaign from World War I to the Internet
This history of the U.S. Public Health Service's efforts to educate Americans about sex makes clear why federally funded sex education has been haphazard, ad hoc, and often ineffectual.
Since launching its first sex ed program during World War I, the Public Health Service has dominated federal sex education efforts. Alexandra M. Lord draws on medical research, news reports, the expansive records of the Public Health Service, and interviews with former surgeons general to examine these efforts, from early initiatives through the administration of George W. Bush.
Giving equal voice to many groups in America—middle class, working class, black, white, urban, rural, Christian and non-Christian, scientist and theologian—Lord explores how federal officials struggled to create sex education programs that balanced cultural and public health concerns. She details how the Public Health Service left an indelible mark on federally and privately funded sex education programs through partnerships and initiatives with community organizations, public schools, foundations, corporations, and religious groups. In the process, Lord explains how tensions among these organizations and local, state, and federal officials often exacerbated existing controversies about sexual behavior. She also discusses why the Public Health Service's promotional tactics sometimes inadvertently fueled public fears about the federal government’s goals in promoting, or not promoting, sex education.
This thoroughly documented and compelling history of the U.S. Public Health Service's involvement in sex education provides new insights into one of the most contested subjects in America.
eBook
On bicycles : a 200-year history of cycling in New York City
\"In its most recent ranking, Bicycling Magazine named New York the number one American city for cycling. But long before the Citi Bike era, New York has stood out as an important city in the history and development of cycling--as a pastime and a mirror of the city's shifting social, economic, and structural developments. In Bicycles and the Boroughs, Evan Friss traces the storied history of bicycling in the Big Apple, from the bicycle-like \"draisine\" in 1818 adopted by a small number of enthusiasts; to New York's ascent to the capital of the cycling world in the 1890s, which among other things triggered increased female mobility and corresponding conversations about the propriety of women cyclists; to Mayor Koch's bike ban of 1987 after the stock market's collapse, which shed light on the ways bankers, lawyers, and other professionals relied on this labor force and the immediacy of the information they delivered. Finally, the history shifts to Michael Bloomberg's Citi Bike initiative, the largest bike sharing system in the country, in an effort to make New York a \"greener\" city. But even in the wake of the program's mass adoption, Friss brings to light ongoing public debates over the location of bike lanes, the dangers of biking in certain areas, whether the program's financial model is sustainable, and the ways in which cycling will continue to shape and be shaped by the city\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Family Policies in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis
This article discusses the diversity of family policy models in 28 OECD countries in terms of the balance between their different objectives and the mix of instruments adopted to implement the policies. Cross-country policy differences are investigated by applying a principal component analysis to comprehensive country-level data from the OECD Family Database covering variables such as parental leave conditions, childcare service provision, and financial support to families. The results find persistent differences in the family policy patterns embedded in different contexts of work-family \"outcomes.\" Country classifications of family policy packages only partially corroborate categorizations in earlier studies, owing to considerable within-group heterogeneity and the presence of group outliers. The Nordic countries outdistance the others with comprehensive support to working parents with very young children. Anglo-Saxon countries provide much less support for working parents with very young children, and financial support is targeted on low-income and large families and focuses on preschool and early elementary education. Continental and Eastern European countries form a more heterogeneous group, while the support received by families in Southern Europe and in Asian countries is much lower in all its dimensions.
Journal Article