scholarly journals Impact of the Economic Impact Payments on Consumer Spending:\\ Analysis on a Granular Level of American Counties

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-18
Author(s):  
Otakar Kořínek
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Time Transfer ◽  
Consumer Spending ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Transfer Payments ◽  
Governmental Policy ◽  
The Impact

This paper draws on weekly consumer spending data collected by American private companies to analyze the impact of the Economic Impact Payments on consumer spending in American counties. We use regression discontinuity design to quantify the causal effect of the Stimulus Checks on spending and use heterogeneity in economic and demographic factors to determine which groups of counties increased their spending the most, to see what factors affected the Stimulus Checks’ effectiveness. We then use the observed difference in impact across groups of counties to discuss whether the Stimulus Checks were the optimal governmental policy in the crisis and discuss the effectiveness of one-time transfer payments in future recessions.

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.

The Emperor Strikes Back: Political Status, Career Incentives and Grain Procurement during China's Great Leap Famine

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Kai-sing Kung
Keyword(s):  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Political Career ◽  
Demonstration Effect ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Great Leap ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Career Incentives

Using China's Great Leap Famine as example, this article shows how political career incentives can produce disastrous outcomes under the well-intended policies of a dictator. By exploiting a regression discontinuity design, the study identifies the causal effect of membership status in the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee—full (FM) Versus alternate members (AM)—on grain procurement. It finds that the difference in grain procurement between AMs and FMs who ranked near the discontinuity threshold is three times that between all AMs and all FMs on average. This may explain why Mao exceptionally promoted some lower-ranked but radical FMs shortly before the Leap: to create a demonstration effect in order to spur other weakly motivated FMs into action.

scholarly journals Evaluating Econometric Evaluations of Post-Secondary Aid

2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (5) ◽  
pp. 502-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Angrist ◽  
David Autor ◽  
Sally Hudson ◽  
Amanda Pallais
Keyword(s):  
Financial Aid ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Random Assignment ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Design Selection ◽  
Ongoing Evaluation

In an ongoing evaluation of post-secondary financial aid, we use random assignment to assess the causal effects of large privately-funded aid awards. Here, we compare the unbiased causal effect estimates from our RCT with two types of non-experimental econometric estimates. The first applies a selection-on-observables assumption in data from an earlier, nonrandomized cohort; the second uses a regression discontinuity design. Selection-on-observables methods generate estimates well below the experimental benchmark. Regression discontinuity estimates are similar to experimental estimates for students near the cutoff, but sensitive to controlling for the running variable, which is unusually coarse.

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.

scholarly journals A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of a Remedial Education Programme

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Abraham S. Ross ◽  
Beth Lacey
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Multiple Regression ◽  
Remedial Education ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Education Programme ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Remedial Students ◽  
Course Grades ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

To demonstrate the usefulness of programme evaluation within the university a regression discontinuity design was used to assess the impact of a remedial education programme. Using multiple regression and analysis ofcovariance, credit course grades of students who had been enrolled in the remedial programmes were compared to the credit course grades of non-remedial students. The results indicated that the remedial programmes were not improving performance above what would have been expected based on high school marks.

scholarly journals Long-Term Contextual Effects in Education: Schools and Neighborhoods

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-377
Author(s):  
Jean-William Laliberté
Keyword(s):  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Contextual Effects ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Long Term Impact

This paper estimates the long-term impact of growing up in better neighborhoods and attending better schools on educational attainment. First, I use a spatial regression-discontinuity design to estimate school effects. Second, I study students who move across neighborhoods in Montreal during childhood to estimate the causal effect of growing up in a better area (total exposure effects). I find large effects for both dimensions. Combining both research designs in a decomposition framework, and under key assumptions, I estimate that 50–70 percent of the benefits of moving to a better area on educational attainment are due to access to better schools. (JEL H75, I21, R23)

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