Does State Allocation of University Funding Moderate Effectively Maintained Inequality?

According to the theory of Effectively Maintained Inequality (EMI), economically advantaged individuals not only enter each level of education at higher rates than do their less advantaged peers, but also enjoy qualitative advantages at each level that position them more favorably to continue to the next level. Governments may play a role in facilitating or limiting EMI because they allocate appropriations to public universities; the more between-university variability in these funds, the more horizontal differences high-income students may exploit. I ask whether Wisconsin’s unequal pattern of appropriations across its institutions of higher education exacerbates income-based disparities in college persistence. I test two hypotheses: (1) Economically advantaged students sort into the universities with greatest appropriations; (2) Appropriations promote first-to-second-year persistence. Evidence in favor of both hypotheses would support the claim that an unequal pattern of appropriations exacerbates college persistence disparities and, accordingly, suggest that unequal allocation facilitates EMI. Results support hypothesis (1) but not hypothesis (2). The results do not present evidence that the Wisconsin state government facilitated or limited EMI based on its allocation of funds across universities.

Does State Allocation of University Funding Moderate Effectively Maintained Inequality?

According to the theory of Effectively Maintained Inequality (EMI), economically advantaged individuals not only enter each level of education at higher rates than do their less advantaged peers, but also enjoy qualitative advantages at each level that position them more favorably to continue to the next level. Governments may play a role in facilitating or limiting EMI because they allocate appropriations to public universities; the more between-university variability in these funds, the more horizontal differences high-income students may exploit. I ask whether Wisconsin’s unequal pattern of appropriations across its institutions of higher education exacerbates income-based disparities in college persistence. I test two hypotheses: (1) Economically advantaged students sort into the universities with greatest appropriations; (2) Appropriations promote first-to-second-year persistence. Evidence in favor of both hypotheses would support the claim that an unequal pattern of appropriations exacerbates college persistence disparities and, accordingly, suggest that unequal allocation facilitates EMI. Results support hypothesis (1) but not hypothesis (2). The results do not present evidence that the Wisconsin state government facilitated or limited EMI based on its allocation of funds across universities.

Absolute Versus Relative Success: Why Overconfidence Creates an Inefficient Equilibrium

Overconfidence is one of the most ubiquitous biases in the social sciences, but the evidence regarding its overall costs and benefits is mixed. To test the possibility that overconfidence might yield important relative benefits that offset its absolute costs, we conducted an experiment ( N = 298 university students) in which pairs of participants bargained over the unequal allocation of a prize that was earned through a joint effort. We manipulated confidence using a binary noisy signal to investigate the causal effect of negotiators’ beliefs about their relative contribution to the outcome of the negotiation. Our results provide evidence that high levels of confidence lead to relative benefits (how much one earns compared with one’s partner) but absolute costs (how much money one receives overall). These results suggest that overconfidence creates an inefficient equilibrium whereby overconfident negotiators benefit over their partners even as they bring about joint losses.

Absolute vs. relative success: Why overconfidence is an inefficient equilibrium

Overconfidence is one of the most ubiquitous biases in the social sciences, but the evidenceregarding its overall costs and benefits is mixed. To test the possibility that overconfidence mightyield important relative benefits that offset its absolute costs, we conducted an experiment (N=298university students) in which pairs of participants bargain over the unequal allocation of a prizethat was earned via a joint effort. We manipulated confidence using a binary noisy signal toinvestigate the causal effect of negotiators’ beliefs about their relative contribution on the outcomeof the negotiation. Our results provide evidence that high levels of confidence lead to relativebenefits (how much one earns compared to one’s partner) but absolute costs (how much moneyone receives overall). These results suggest that overconfidence creates an inefficient equilibriumwhereby overconfident negotiators benefit over their partners even as they bring about joint losses.

Simple Unequal Allocation Procedure for Ranked Set Sampling with Skew Distributions

A practical unbalanced Ranked Set Sampling (RSS) model is proposed to estimate the population mean of positively skewed distributions. The gains in the relative precisions of the population mean based on the proposed model for chosen distributions are uniformly higher than those based on balanced RSS and the t-model proposed in Kaur et al. (1997). The relative precisions of the simple unequal allocation model are, with one exception, better than (s, t)-model which is better than t-model. The relative precision of the proposed model is very close or equal to the optimal Neyman allocation model.

The unequal allocation of PRONAF resources: which factors determine the intensity of the program across Brazil?

The family farming sector in Brazil is an important player in the country’s economy, especially in poor rural areas., The government has created the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (PRONAF) to stimulate the development of family farming in Brazil. It a credit program that offers loans at a subsidized interest rate. Previous studies have shown that wealthier farmers and more developed regions have more access to subsidized credit. Due to this apparently unequal allocation of PRONAF resources, the study aims to analyze, through econometric regressions and interviews with specialists, the underlying determinants for the unequal credit allocation across the municipalities in Brazil. Results indicate that wealth and knowledge of farmers are significant determinants of loan size, whereas municipalities that represent a high risk have received significantly fewer resources from PRONAF per household head. Thereby, we can conclude that PRONAF’s operations are not fulfilling their pro-poor objectives of targeting poor farmers and municipalities. Progress in infrastructure and institutions to reduce risks, enhancement of farmers’ qualifications and organization, better access to markets and agroindustry, and improvements in rural extension services are found to be essential to increasing the access to PRONAF’s credit.

Trends in case-control allocation in phase III randomized cancer clinical trials.

e14582 Background: Patients enrollment in cancer clinical trials has traditionally been limited to an equal distribution between cases and controls. Some clinical trials have an unequal distribution between the case and control arm. Although such unequal allocation is uncommon it has certain advantages and disadvantages to it. The trend and proportion of cancer clinical trials that have an unequal allocation has not been studied. Methods: Data about cancer clinical trials was extracted from clinical trials.gov. The query included phase 3 trials which included adults and were conducted between 2010 to 2017. Only clinical trials that were either completed or active – but not recruiting were included. T test was used to determine statistical difference between different subgroups. Results: 601 clinical trials were identified of which 356 trials with two arms and 47 trials with 3+ arms were identified. Amongst the eligible 298 trials with two arms, there were 216 trials with equal allocation (1:1) and 82 trials with unequal allocation. Amongst the eligible 29 trials with 3+ arms; there were 21 trials with equal allocation (1:1:1) and 8 trials with unequal allocation. There was no significant difference in the proportion of trials with unequal allocation over the time period from 2010 to 2017. The categories of cancer which had the highest number of two arm clinical trials with unequal allotment were: genitourinary, breast and hematological malignancies (Table). Conclusions: Cancer clinical trials with unequal allocation between case and control arms have been common in the past decade. This may represent a new trend in clinical trial design to help enhance closer monitoring of adverse events despite higher costs attached to this method.[Table: see text]