scholarly journals Cell Phone Access and Election Fraud: Evidence from a Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design in Afghanistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-51
Author(s):  
Robert M. Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Cell Phone ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Social Monitoring ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Election Fraud ◽  
Phone Access ◽  
The Impact

This paper examines the impact of cell phone access on election fraud. I combine cell phone coverage maps with the location of polling centers during the 2009 Afghan presidential election to pinpoint which centers were exposed to coverage. Results from a spatial regression discontinuity design along the two-dimensional coverage boundary suggest that coverage deters corrupt behavior. Polling centers just inside coverage report a drop in the share of fraudulent votes of 4 percentage points, while the likelihood of a fraudulent station decreases by 8 percentage points. Analyses of the effect of coverage on citizen participation in election monitoring, election-related insurgent violence, and the tribal composition of villages suggest that the observed declines in fraud are likely attributed to cell phone access strengthening social monitoring capacity. (JEL D72, K16, K42, O17, Z13)

scholarly journals Beyond Work Ethic: Religion, Individual, and Political Preferences

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Basten ◽  
Frank Betz
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Capita Income ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Homogeneous Region ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Per Capita

We investigate the effect of Reformed Protestantism, relative to Catholicism, on preferences for leisure, and for redistribution and intervention in the economy. We use a Fuzzy Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design to exploit a historical quasi-experiment in Western Switzerland, where in the sixteenth century a hitherto homogeneous region was split and one part assigned to adopt Protestantism. We find that Reformed Protestantism reduces referenda voting for more leisure by 14, redistribution by 5, and government intervention by 7 percentage points. These preferences translate into higher per capita income as well as greater income inequality. (JEL D12, D31, D72, H23, N33, Z12)

scholarly journals Effectiveness of a Power Factor Correction Policy in Improving the Energy Efficiency of Large-Scale Electricity Users in Ghana

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 2582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Lotsu ◽  
Yuichiro Yoshida ◽  
Katsufumi Fukuda ◽  
Bing He
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Power Factor ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Power Factor Correction ◽  
Energy Crisis ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
The Government ◽  
Power Factor Improvement ◽  
The Impact

Confronting an energy crisis, the government of Ghana enacted a power factor correction policy in 1995. The policy imposes a penalty on large-scale electricity users, namely, special load tariff (SLT) customers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), whose power factor is below 90%. This paper investigates the impact of this policy on these firms’ power factor improvement by using panel data from 183 SLT customers from 1994 to 1997 and from 2012. To avoid potential endogeneity, this paper adopts a regression discontinuity design (RDD) with the power factor of the firms in the previous year as a running variable, with its cutoff set at the penalty threshold. The result shows that these large-scale electricity users who face the penalty because their power factor falls just short of the threshold are more likely to improve their power factor in the subsequent year, implying that the power factor correction policy implemented by Ghana’s government is effective.

scholarly journals A regression discontinuity analysis of the social distancing recommendations for older adults in Sweden during COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Bonander ◽  
Debora Stranges ◽  
Johanna Gustavsson ◽  
Matilda Almgren ◽  
Malin Inghammar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Model Specification ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Sharp Drop ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Disease Outcomes ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Register Data ◽  
The Impact

Objectives: To study the impact of non-mandatory, age-specific social distancing recommendations for older adults (70+ years) in Sweden on isolation behaviors and disease outcomes during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Our study relies on self-reported isolation data from COVID Symptom Study Sweden (n = 96,053) and national register data on COVID-19 hospitalizations, deaths, and confirmed cases. We use a regression discontinuity design to account for confounding factors, exploiting the fact that exposure to the recommendation was a discontinuous function of age. Results: By comparing individuals just above to those just below the age limit for the policy, our analyses revealed a sharp drop in the weekly number of visits to crowded places at the 70-year-threshold (-13%). Severe COVID-19 cases (hospitalizations or deaths) also dropped abruptly by 16% at the 70-year-threshold. Our data suggest that the age-specific recommendations prevented approximately 1,800 to 2,700 severe COVID-19 cases, depending on model specification. Conclusion: The non-mandatory, age-specific recommendations helped control the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden.

scholarly journals Estimating the Impact of Air Pollution on Inbound Tourism in China: An Analysis Based on Regression Discontinuity Design

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daxin Dong ◽  
Xiaowei Xu ◽  
Yat Wong
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Tourism Development ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Reverse Causality ◽  
Chinese Cities ◽  
Inbound Tourism ◽  
The Impact

Prior studies have suggested the existence of a reverse causality relationship between air quality and tourism development: while air quality influences tourism, dynamic segments of the tourism industry (e.g., cruising, airline, foodservice) have impacts on air quality. This reverse causality hinders a precise estimate on the effect of air pollution on tourism development within a conventional econometric framework, since the variable of air pollution is endogenous. This study estimates the impact of air pollution on the inbound tourism industry in China, by controlling for endogeneity based on a regression discontinuity design (RDD). The estimate is derived from a quasi-experiment generated by China’s Huai River Policy, which subsidizes coal for winter heating in northern Chinese cities. By analyzing data from 274 Chinese cities during the period 2009–2012, it is found that air pollution significantly reduces the international inbound tourism: an increase of PM 10 (particulate matter smaller than 10 μ m) by 0.1 mg/m 3 will cause a decline in the tourism receipts-to-local gross domestic product (GDP) ratio by 0.45 percentage points. This study also highlights the importance of controlling for endogeneity, since the detrimental impact of air pollution would otherwise be considerably underestimated. This study further demonstrates that, although air pollution is positively correlated with the average expenditure of each tourist, it substantially depresses the number of inbound tourists. The results imply that air quality could potentially influence inbound tourists’ city destination choices. However, it is interesting to note that travelers in air polluted cities in China tend to spend more money.

scholarly journals What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries?

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW B. HALL
Keyword(s):  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
General Election ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Primary Election ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
General Elections ◽  
The U.S

This article studies the interplay of U.S. primary and general elections. I examine how the nomination of an extremist changes general-election outcomes and legislative behavior in the U.S. House, 1980–2010, using a regression discontinuity design in primary elections. When an extremist—as measured by primary-election campaign receipt patterns—wins a “coin-flip” election over a more moderate candidate, the party’s general-election vote share decreases on average by approximately 9–13 percentage points, and the probability that the party wins the seat decreases by 35–54 percentage points. This electoral penalty is so large that nominating the more extreme primary candidate causes the district’s subsequent roll-call representation to reverse, on average, becoming more liberal when an extreme Republican is nominated and more conservative when an extreme Democrat is nominated. Overall, the findings show how general-election voters act as a moderating filter in response to primary nominations.

scholarly journals The malleability of intelligence: the effects of schooling, genetic factors, socioeconomic status, and their interplay in children.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Judd ◽  
Bruno Sauce ◽  
Torkel Klingberg
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
Fluid Intelligence ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Independent Effects ◽  
Main Effects ◽  
The Impact

Schooling, socioeconomic status (SES), and genetics all play large roles in intelligence differences. However, it is unclear to what extent their contributions are unique and if they interact. Here we used a multitrait polygenic score for cognition (cog-PGS) with a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design to isolate how months of schooling relate to intelligence in 7,853 children (aged 9-11). We found large, independent effects of schooling, cog-PGS, and SES on working memory, crystallized (cIQ), and fluid intelligence (fIQ). Intriguingly, we found evidence for gene-by-environment interplay between cog-PGS and SES for cIQ, and a trend in the same direction for fIQ. This interaction was negative meaning that the intelligence of the highest SES children was the least affected by genetic differences, while the lowest SES children were most affected by genetic variability. Schooling showed no interaction with cog-PGS or SES for the three intelligence domains tested. While schooling had strong main effects on intelligence, it did not lessen, nor widen the impact of these preexisting SES or genetic factors.

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