Browsing by Author "Economics, School of Liberal Arts"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 48
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    A comparison between perceived rurality and established geographic rural status among Indiana residents
    (Wolters Kluwer, 2023) Bhattacharyya, Oindrila; Rawl, Susan M.; Dickinson, Stephanie L.; Haggstrom, David A.; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    The study assessed the association and concordance of the traditional geography-based Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes to individuals' self-reported rural status per a survey scale. The study included residents from rural and urban Indiana, seen at least once in a statewide health system in the past 12 months. Surveyed self-reported rural status of individuals obtained was measured using 6 items with a 7-point Likert scale. Cronbach's alpha was used to measure the internal consistency between the 6 survey response items, along with exploratory factor analysis to evaluate their construct validity. Perceived rurality was compared with RUCA categorization, which was mapped to residential zip codes. Association and concordance between the 2 measures were calculated using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and Gwet's Agreement Coefficient (Gwet's AC), respectively. Primary self-reported data were obtained through a cross-sectional, statewide, mail-based survey, administered from January 2018 through February 2018, among a random sample of 7979 individuals aged 18 to 75, stratified by rural status and race. All 970 patients who completed the survey answered questions regarding their perceived rurality. Cronbach's alpha value of 0.907 was obtained indicating high internal consistency among the 6 self-perceived rurality items. Association of RUCA categorization and self-reported geographic status was moderate, ranging from 0.28 to 0.41. Gwet's AC ranged from -0.11 to 0.26, indicating poor to fair agreement between the 2 measures based on the benchmark scale of reliability. Geography-based and self-report methods are complementary in assessing rurality. Individuals living in areas of relatively high population density may still self-identify as rural, or individuals with long commutes may self-identify as urban.
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    Adversity in Infancy and Childhood Cognitive Development: Evidence From Four Developing Countries
    (Frontiers, 2022-12-12) Manalew, W. Samuel; Tennekoon, Vidhura S.; Lee, Jusung; O'Connell, Bethesda; Quinn, Megan; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    Objectives: We investigated whether adverse experiences at age 1 (AE-1) affect the level of and change in cognition during childhood using harmonized data from four developing countries. Methods: Data included children born in 2001/2002 and were followed longitudinally in 2006/2007 and in 2009/2010 by Young Lives study in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. Childhood cognition was measured using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) at ages 5 (PPVT-5) and 8 (PPVT-8). We also examined the effect on a change in cognition between age 5–8 (PPVT-Change). The AE-1 scores were constructed using survey responses at age 1. The ordinary least squares regression was used for estimation. Results: We found that children with higher adversities as infants had lower cognition scores at ages 5 and 8. The change in cognition between the two ages was also generally smaller for those with severe adversities at infancy. The negative association between adversities and childhood cognition was strongest for India. Conclusion: The results provide policy relevant information for mitigation of undesirable consequences of early life adversities through timely interventions.
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    Assessment of Filled Buprenorphine Prescriptions for Opioid Use Disorder During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic
    (AMA, 2020-12) Nguyen, Thuy D.; Gupta, Sumedha; Ziedan, Engy; Simon, Kosali I.; Alexander, Caleb; Saloner, Brendan; Stein, Bradley D.; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has profoundly disrupted health care delivery in the US.1 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted a 9.1% increase in reported 12-month counts of drug overdose deaths from March 2019 to March 2020, from 67 726 to 73 860.2 On March 13, 2020, a COVID-19 national emergency was declared. To diminish potential barriers to treatment access, 3 days later, federal guidelines on telemedicine use were released, providing authorized practitioners increased flexibility to prescribe buprenorphine to patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) during this public health emergency.3 Other local, state, and federal policy initiatives have also attempted to preserve access to medication treatment for OUD, yet the cumulative outcome of these undertakings is not clear.
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    Bundling and Joint Marketing by Rival Firms
    (Wiley, 2017) Jeitschko, Thomas D.; Jung, Yeonjei; Kim, Jaesoo; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    We study joint marketing by firms who price discriminate between consumers who patronize only one firm (single purchasers) and those who purchase from both (bundle purchasers). Firms either set the price of the bundle and then compete along side the bundle; or they determine a rebate that is applied to joint purchasers and then set prices. Even though the pricing structure in the joint marketing scheme is determined noncooperatively, the commitment to the joint marketing agreement allows firms to leverage their stand-alone prices—leading to higher profits and lower consumer surplus in either case, compared to both uniform pricing and independent price discrimination without a joint marketing agreement. Nevertheless the two schemes differ dramatically, in that rebates increase joint purchasing, whereas bundle pricing diminishes bundle purchases.
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    Charitable Giving in Nonprofit Service Associations: Identities, Incentives, and Gender Differences
    (Sage, 2017) Qu, Heng; Steinberg, Richard; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    Nonprofit service associations, such as the Lions Clubs, Rotaries, and Kiwanis, provide collective goods. Membership in a service association involves two essential elements: members’ shared interest in the club’s charitable service and private benefits stemming from social interactions with other members, such as networking, fellowship, and fun. We report results from a laboratory experiment designed to test the effect of membership and priming on charitable giving. The two experimental conditions activate chains of associative memory linked to the service or socializing aspects of membership. We find that female subjects give significantly smaller donations after receiving the socializing stimulus. Male subjects are less sensitive to our experimental conditions, giving slightly more in the socializing condition, but the differences are not statistically significant. We discuss three mechanisms that may explain our results: social identity theory, reputation and image motivations, and quality inference.
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    Comparison of health information exchange data with self-report in measuring cancer screening
    (BMC, 2023-07-25) Bhattacharyya, Oindrila; Rawl, Susan M.; Dickinson, Stephanie L.; Haggstrom, David A.; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    Background: Efficient measurement of the receipt of cancer screening has been attempted with electronic health records (EHRs), but EHRs are commonly implemented within a single health care setting. However, health information exchange (HIE) includes EHR data from multiple health care systems and settings, thereby providing a more population-based measurement approach. In this study, we set out to understand the value of statewide HIE data in comparison to survey self-report (SR) to measure population-based cancer screening. Methods: A statewide survey was conducted among residents in Indiana who had been seen at an ambulatory or inpatient clinical setting in the past year. Measured cancer screening tests included colonoscopy and fecal immunochemical test (FIT) for colorectal cancer, human papilloma virus (HPV) and Pap tests for cervical cancer, and mammogram for breast cancer. For each screening test, the self-reported response for receipt of the screening (yes/no) and 'time since last screening' were compared with the corresponding information from patient HIE to evaluate the concordance between the two measures. Results: Gwet's AC for HIE and self-report of screening receipt ranged from 0.24-0.73, indicating a fair to substantial concordance. For the time since receipt of last screening test, the Gwet's AC ranged from 0.21-0.90, indicating fair to almost perfect concordance. In comparison with SR data, HIE data provided relatively more additional information about laboratory-based tests: FIT (19% HIE alone vs. 4% SR alone) and HPV tests (27% HIE alone vs. 12% SR alone) and less additional information about procedures: colonoscopy (8% HIE alone vs. 23% SR alone), Pap test (13% HIE alone vs. 19% SR alone), or mammography (9% HIE alone vs. 10% SR alone). Conclusion: Studies that use a single data source should consider the type of cancer screening test to choose the optimal data collection method. HIE and self-report both provided unique information in measuring cancer screening, and the most robust measurement approach involves collecting screening information from both HIE and patient self-report.
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    Dirty hands on troubled waters: Sanitation, access to water and child health in Ethiopia
    (Wiley, 2019-11) Manalew, Wondimu S.; Tennekoon, Vidhura S.; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    In this paper, we investigate the impact of access to drinking water sources and sanitation facilities on the incidence of diarrheal diseases among children below 5 years of age in Ethiopia using the propensity score matching technique with a polychotomous treatment variable. We find that among the water sources traditionally considered as improved, only water piped into dwelling, yard or plot leads to a large percentage point reduction in diarrhea incidence. The other water sources, generally believed as clean, are not effective in reducing diarrhea even compared with some of the unimproved water sources. We also find that some unimproved water sources and sanitation facilities are less inferior than they are believed to be. These results suggest that the traditional way of categorizing different types of improved and unimproved water sources and sanitation facilities into a dichotomous variable, “improved” or “unimproved”, could be misleading as it masks the heterogeneous effects of the water sources and the sanitation facilities.
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    Economic Uncertainty and Fertility
    (University of Chicago Press, 2021) Gozgor, Giray; Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin; Rangazas, Peter; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    The precautionary motive for saving predicts that an increase in income uncertainty increases saving by reducing both consumption and fertility. We examine this prediction using a new measure of economic uncertainty—the World Uncertainty Index—and focus on data from 126 countries for the period 1996–2017. The empirical findings indicate that uncertainty decreases the fertility rate, as suggested by theory. This evidence is robust to different model specifications and econometric techniques as well as to the inclusion of various controls. The evidence also indicates that changes in uncertainty may be a factor explaining why fertility is procyclical.
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    Effects of Purchase Restrictions on Smoking During Pregnancy: An Analysis of U.S. Birth Records
    (Oxford, 2023-05) Tennekoon, Vidhura S. B. W.; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    Introduction In December 2019, the minimum legal sales age (MLSA) for tobacco products in the United States was raised from 18 to 21 years as a measure of preventing smoking initiation. Smoking during pregnancy, which causes maternal, fetal, and infant morbidity and mortality, is a major public health concern. We first study the effects of purchase restrictions on smoking during different stages of pregnancy covering the entire United States and using the records of all live births during 2014–2018 by birthing people aged 18–21 years. Aims and Methods Our identification strategy utilizes the variation in the MLSA of tobacco products over time and across counties in the United States during 2014–2018 using a two-way fixed effects model, modified to accommodate a partially observable treatment indicator. Results The results show that 37.4% of potential smokers in our study population would have been prevented from smoking before pregnancy, 50.5% during the first trimester, 53.4% during the second trimester, and 14.8% during the third trimester if the law prevented selling tobacco products to them in the locality they live. A purchase restriction is estimated to cause the smoking intensity of those who smoke, the intensive margin, to drop by 5.4% before pregnancy, 10.4% during the first trimester, 14.8% during the second trimester, and 5.2% during the third trimester. Conclusions Our results show that purchase restrictions are highly effective in preventing smoking among birthing people in the 18–21 years age group. The effect on smoking prevalence during the first and second trimesters is more pronounced. Implications Many countries around the world have recently tightened age-based purchase restriction policies as a tobacco control measure. We first study the effects of purchase restrictions on smoking during different stages of pregnancy using the birth records of all pregnancies in the United States by birthing people aged 18–21 years during 2014–2018. The study utilizes the variation in the MLSA of tobacco products over time and across counties during that period. Our results show that purchase restrictions are highly effective in preventing smoking among birthing people in the 18–21 years age group.
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    Effects of social distancing policy on labor market outcomes
    (Wiley, 2023) Gupta, Sumedha; Montenovo, Laura; Nguyen, Thuy; Lozano-Rojas, Felipe; Schmutte, Ian; Simon, Kosali; Weinberg, Bruce A.; Wing, Coady; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    US workers receive unemployment benefits if they lose their job, but not for reduced working hours. In alignment with the benefits incentives, we find that the labor market responded to COVID-19 and related closure-policies mostly on the extensive (12 pp outright job loss) margin. Exploiting timing variation in state closure-policies, difference-in-differences (DiD) estimates show, between March 12 and April 12, 2020, employment rate fell by 1.7 pp for every 10 extra days of state stay-at-home orders (SAH), with little effect on hours worked/earnings among those employed. Forty percentage of the unemployment was due to a nationwide shock, rest due to social-distancing policies, particularly among "non-essential" workers.