Impact Research Newsletter: 2022 Vol. 3

Welcome to our roundup of relevant and interesting recent academic research by impact sector. This volume covers research from April to June 2022 and spans working papers and journal-published, peer-reviewed academic research. Enjoy!

Education

• Remote instruction is identified as a primary driver of widening academic achievement gaps by race and income during COVID-19: using data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools across the U.S., researchers find that within school districts that were remote for most of 2020-21, high-poverty schools experienced 50% more achievement loss than low-poverty schools. Moreover, schools attended by disadvantaged and racial minority students were more negatively impacted, widening the racial gap in academic achievement. The study estimates that high-poverty school districts that went remote for most of 2020 – 2021 would need to spend nearly all of their federal aid on academic recovery in order to help students catch up on pandemic-related achievement losses. [Goldhaber et. al. 2022]
• Teacher participation and engagement in digital learning is critical for increasing students’ academic achievement: researchers examined the student achievement impact of two implementation models of eLearn, a Pakistani government program that provide brief, expert-led, curriculum-based videos on math and science topics. Results show that when teachers integrated eLearn videos into their classroom instructions, students’ academic achievement increased by 0.3 standard deviations (SD). In contrast, when students received individual tablets with eLearn videos for independent learning, academic achievement decreased by 0.43 SD. [Beg et. al. 2022]
• New research observes unequal distribution of substitute teachers across schools: using detailed administrative and survey data from a large urban school district from 2011 - 2018, researchers documented the prevalence, predictors, and distribution of substitute teacher coverage across schools. Of the 11.8 days an average teacher was absent during a school year, over 7% were not covered by a substitute teacher. Moreover, less advantaged schools systematically exhibit lower rates of substitute coverage compared to peer institutions, due to school characteristics and substitute teachers’ preferences over student behavior and support from teachers and school administrators. This study also finds that 24 hours of advanced notice is associated with a significant jump in substitute teacher coverage, indicating that gains are possible by planning around the posting of absences and their allocation across classrooms. [Liu et.al. 2022]
• Researchers evaluate the returns to 19 different graduate degrees to find substantial variations across field and gender within a given field: a fixed effect regression model on national survey data of college graduates finds that returns to medicine is 0.718 for men and 0.527 for women, whereas returns to women in engineering is under 0.1 and negative for both men and women in arts. Moreover, returns to women are substantially higher for degrees in humanities, health, education, and law, while the returns to medicine, engineering, and life sciences are somewhat larger for men. [Altonji et.al. 2022]
• Most of the increase in college graduation rates between 1990 and 2010 can be explained by artificial grade inflation rather than increased learning or college preparation: researchers analyzed nationally representative surveys from the National Center for Education Statistics and find that student characteristics, institutional resources, and institution attended by student explain little of the increase in graduation rates from 52% in 1990 to 59.7% in 2010. Most of the change in graduation rates can be explained by the increase in GPA. Microdata from 9 public universities and a public liberal arts college further reveal that the increase in GPA is due to relaxed grading standards rather than improved college preparation or student learning. Recent policy focus on college completion may have incentivized schools to adopt grade inflation, a low-cost way to increase graduation rates without increasing spending to help students graduate. [Denning et. al. 2022]
• Children who grow up in households of lower socioeconomic status receive lower quality of care during early childhood (ages 0 – 4): using time-series data from 2001 to 2019, researchers investigated the quality of parental and nonparental care experienced by U.S. children before they enter K-12 schooling. Quality of care is measured based on independent observers’ detailed accounting of activities that caregivers engage in with children, with a focus on process (i.e., quality of interactions between a caregiver and child), as opposed to structure (i.e., child-to-staff ratios in daycare centers). This measurement is built on well-developed literature showing process measures being strongly correlated with developmental outcomes. The results show that children from families of higher socioeconomic status (proxied by maternal education levels) received the majority of their nonparental care from centers or nonrelative home-based providers, whereas children from households of lower socioeconomic status received the majority of their nonparental care from relatives. Within provider type, children from households of lower socioeconomic status were also found to experience lower quality care than those of higher socioeconomic status. The disparity is further reinforced as children from higher socioeconomic status households also received higher quality parental care. The gap in care quality is largest for young children and this gap reduce as children age. [Flood et. al. 2022]

Financial Services

• New evidence demonstrates that reducing liquidity constraints can be key to improving smallholder farmers’ income: Maintaining staple grains throughout the year and managing liquidity are two major challenges that smallholder farmers face at harvest. Researchers implemented a randomized controlled trial in Tanzania designed to address these post-harvest constraints. First, treated farmers were offered two hermetic (airtight) storage bags, which helped preserve grain quantity and quality. Second, treated farmers were offered a loan at harvest, which reduced the liquidity constraints they faced. Repayment was due with interest six months from harvest when maize prices were traditionally higher. While researchers did not find a significant impact of the storage intervention, farmers who received loan stored 29 percent more and sold 50 percent more maize on average in the lean season compared to farmers in the control group. [Channa et. al. 2022]
• New research investigating the intersectionality of race and gender on financial exclusion in the U.S. finds that black women are more likely than any other group to be unbanked or underbanked: Recent estimates indicate that approximately 8.4 million US households are unbanked, with an additional 24.2 million US households classified as underbanked. Researchers find that Black women are significantly more likely than Black men or any other group to be unbanked or to be underbanked, with limited wealth more frequently cited by Black women as the main driver for this financial exclusion. [Bogan et. al. 2022]
• Randomized field experiment finds that financial education programs are more effective when applying the concept of active learning: Active learning refers to a form of interactive teaching where participants are engaged and involved via physical activities, discussions, case studies, etc. Researchers conducted a cluster-randomized field experiment in rural western Uganda to contrast an active learning financial education program with a traditional lecturing program. The study finds that the group randomly allocated to the “active learning” program saw 20% increase in total savings and 35% increase in investment into their own businesses. These increases also tend to persist after almost four years of intervention. However, both treatment groups also report a significantly higher degree of late payments on loans compared to the control group, consistent with other research on adverse effects on debt-taking behavior among students. [Kaiser et. al. 2022]

Healthcare

• New Lancet study reveals that long-term exposure to wildfires may increase the risk of lung cancer and brain tumors: an observational cohort study following 2 million people for a median of 20 years finds that individuals exposed to a wildfire within 50km of residential locations in the past 10 years had a 4.9% higher incidence of lung cancer than unexposed populations, and a 10% higher incidence of brain tumors. Since this is the first epidemiological study investigating associations between wildfires and cancer risk, a causal effect cannot yet be ascertained. Additional research is needed to refine exposure metrics used in estimating the chronic health effects of wildfires and replication in different locations and populations. [Korsiak et. al. 2022]
• Prenatal exposure to extreme temperatures may lead to adverse birth outcomes, further exacerbating existing birth health disparities in the U.S.: analysis of national birth data from 2009-2018 reveals that an additional day with mean temperature greater than 80°F or less than 10°F increases preterm births and low birthweight. The adverse effects are borne disproportionally by Black and Hispanic mothers, suggesting that the projected increase in extreme temperatures due to climate change may further exacerbate the existing birth health disparities across different race and ethnicity groups. Researchers also find that prenatal exposure to extreme heat two standard deviation above the country’s historic average induces preterm births and NICU admissions, particularly for mothers whose pregnancies overlap with summer months. [Cil and Kim 2022]
• New study finds that improvement in ambient air quality over the past two decades have raised nation-wide test scores and improved educational equity:  Researchers combined satellite-based pollution data and test scores from over 10,000 U.S. school districts to estimate the relationship between air pollution and test scores. Using an instrumental variable approach, the study finds that each microgram per cubic meter increase in PM2.5 concentration causes a 0.02 standard deviation decline in test scores. As air quality improved over the past two decades, this translates into 0.06 standard deviation improvement in test scores. Moreover, the study finds that this drop in air pollution also improved education system equity, lowering the black-white test score gap by 0.01 standard deviation. [Gilraine et. al. 2022]
• New experimental evidence shows that the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on crime and violence reduction is persistent over 10 years: Researchers followed 999 high-risk men in Liberia 10 years after randomization into 8 weeks of low-cost therapy, $200 cash, both, or a control group. A decade later, men receiving therapy or therapy with cash were about half as likely as the control group to engage in criminal behaviors, such as robbery, drug selling, and street fights—far exceeding expert predictions. Impacts are concentrated in the highest-risk men, and most robust from therapy with cash. [Blattman et. al. 2022]

Food and Agriculture

• Incorporating novel foods in European diets can reduce global warming potential, water use and land use by over 80%:  New study in Nature modeled the environmental impact of incorporating novel (cultured meat, microbial protein, mycoprotein, insect meal, etc) or plant-based food within European diets to find that compared to current diet, a novel food diet can reduce global warming potential by 83%, water usage by 85%, and land use by 87%. Model shows that while novel food diets would have 4-34% lower emissions, water use, and land use compared to omnivore or vegetarian diets, when optimized for emissions reduction, the vegetarian diet can have 8% less environmental impact than the novel food diet. Recognizing the difficulty of large-scale shifts from an animal protein diet to a novel food diet due to cultural, cost, and nutritional considerations, incorporating some novel food and vegetables in existing diets can also make an impact. [Mazac et. al. 2022]
• Reducing livestock methane emissions is critical to meeting the 1.5 °C target: To meet the 1.5 °C target, methane (CH₄) from ruminants must be reduced by 11-30% by 2030 and 24-47% by 2050 compared to 2010 levels. A meta-analysis identifies strategies to decrease both product-based (CH₄ per unit meat or milk) and absolute enteric CH₄ emissions while maintaining or increasing animal productivity. The product-based strategies (increasing feeding level, decreasing grass maturity, and decreasing dietary forage-to-concentrate ratio) can decrease CH4 per unit meat or milk by 12% and increase animal productivity (weight gain or milk yield) by 17%. The absolute reduction strategies (CH4 inhibitors, tanniferous forages, electron sinks, oils and fats, and oilseeds) can decrease daily emissions by 21%. [Arndt et. al. 2022]
• New study reveals that improving air quality can benefit agricultural productivity in addition to human health: Researchers used satellite measures of both crop greenness and NO_x during 2018–2020 to evaluate crop impacts for five major agricultural regions. They find consistent negative associations between NO₂ and greenness across regions and seasons. This is because NO_x can directly damage crop cells and indirectly affect growth by promoting ozone and aerosol formation. Researchers estimate that reducing NO_x levels to the current fifth percentile in each agricultural region would raise yields by ~25% for winter crops in China, ~15% for summer crops in China, and up to 10% in India, US, Western Europe, and South America. [Lobell et. al. 2022]

Disclaimer:  Views presented in the linked articles are the paper authors’ own and not representative of Y Analytics. For informational purposes only, not intended as investment advice. Content may not be comprehensive of all timely research within each sector. Text is often drawn directly from cited sources.