Coleção de Artigos em Andamento [Working Papers]
URI permanente para esta coleçãohttps://repositorio.insper.edu.br/handle/11224/3233
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4 resultados
Resultados da Pesquisa
Working Paper Education and health: evaluating theories and evidence(2006) Cutler, David M.; Lleras-Muney, AdrianaThere is a large and persistent association between education and health. In this paper, we review what is known about this link. We first document the facts about the relationship between education and health. The education 'gradient' is found for both health behaviors and health status, though the former does not fully explain the latter. The effect of education increases with increasing years of education, with no evidence of a sheepskin effect. Nor are there differences between blacks and whites, or men and women. Gradients in behavior are biggest at young ages, and decline after age 50 or 60. We then consider differing reasons why education might be related to health. The obvious economic explanations - education is related to income or occupational choice - explain only a part of the education effect. We suggest that increasing levels of education lead to different thinking and decision-making patterns. The monetary value of the return to education in terms of health is perhaps half of the return to education on earnings, so policies that impact educational attainment could have a large effect on population health.Working Paper Reducing crime through environmental design: evidence from a randomized experiment of street lighting in New York City(2019) Chalfin, Aaron; Hansen, Benjamin; Lerner, Jason; Parker, LucieThis paper offers experimental evidence that crime can be successfully reduced by changing the situational environment that potential victims and offenders face. We focus on a ubiquitous but surprisingly understudied feature of the urban landscape – street lighting – and report the first experimental evidence on the effect of street lighting on crime. Through a unique public partnership in New York City, temporary streetlights were randomly allocated to public housing developments from March through August 2016. We find evidence that communities that were assigned more lighting experienced sizable reductions in crime. After accounting for potential spatial spillovers, we find that the provision of street lights led, at a minimum, to a 36 percent reduction in nighttime outdoor index crimes.Working Paper Under pressure: women's leadership during the COVID-19 crisis(2021) Bruce, Raphael; Cavgias, Alexsandros; Meloni, Luis; Remígio, MárioIn this paper, we study the effect of women's public leadership in times of crisis. More specifically, we use a regression discontinuity design in close mayoral races between male and female candidates to understand the impact of having a woman as a mayor during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We provide evidence that municipalities under female leadership had fewer deaths and hospitalizations per 100 thousand inhabitants and enforced more non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g., mask usage and prohibition of gatherings). We also show that these results are not due to measures taken before the pandemic or other observable mayoral characteristics such as education or political preferences. Finally, we provide evidence that these effects are stronger in municipalities where Brazil's far-right president, who publicly disavowed the importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions, had a higher vote share in the 2018 election. Overall, our findings provide credible causal evidence that female leaders outperformed male ones when dealing with a global policy issue. Moreover, our results also showcase the role local leaders can play in counteracting bad policies implemented by populist leaders at the national level.Working Paper Political competition and the provision of early childhood education and care: evidence from Brazil(2022) Portella, Alysson Lorenzon; Tebaldi, RaquelThe objective of this paper is to investigate whether higher political competition induces the expansion of public early childhood education and care (ECEC) services using Brazil as a case study. Public ECEC services are provided mainly by Brazilian municipalities and although enrolment for children aged 0 to 3 is not mandatory, it has increased continuously in the last two decades, with large heterogeneity across municipalities. In addition, electoral rules in Brazil establishes a dual-ballot system only for municipalities with more than 200,000 registered voters. This provides an exogenous variation in political competition that enables us to evaluate its impact on ECEC provision through a regression discontinuity design. We find that average estimated municipal crèche net enrolment rates are around 3 percentage points larger in municipalities with the dual-ballot. ECEC expenditure levels are also higher in these municipalities.