Impact Research Newsletter: 2022 Vol. 4

Welcome to our roundup of relevant and interesting academic research by impact sector. This volume covers research from July to September 2022 and spans working papers, journal commentaries, and peer-reviewed academic research. Enjoy and have a wonderful holiday season!

Education

• Systematic review of U.S. online instruction for K-12 students identifies key contextual conditions and instructional practices to maximize efficacy: the transition to fully or partially online instruction for K-12 students necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic highlights a current lack of understanding of best practices for online teaching and learning. This systematic review of literature reveals that the efficacy of online education depends on educator preparedness, technology access and autonomy, students’ developmental needs and availability, and students’ self-regulated learning skills. In addition, it highlights seven pillars of instructional practices that can help maximize online teaching efficacy: evidenced-based course design, connected learners, accessibility, supportive learning environment, individualization, active learning, and real-time assessment. [Johnson et al. 2022]
• Childhood social skills and self-control trainings generate positive impact, with persistent effects over the course of a lifetime: the Montreal Longitudinal Experimental Study (MLES) randomly assigned at-risk boys into either the treatment group that received two years of social skills and self-control training, or the control group that had access to standard programs and resources available to Montreal public school children. Using administrative data 20-years after the study, researchers find that the intervention increased average yearly income by about 20% and decreased average yearly social welfare payments by almost 40%. They estimate that $1 invested in this program around age 8 yields ~$11 in benefit by age 39, with an IRR of ~17%. [Algan et al. 2022]
• Study estimates that around 1/5 international master’s students and around 1/10 international bachelor’s students in the U.S. transition into local employment post-graduation in the near term: using international student administrative and employment data (IPEDS and OPT), researchers apply an instrumental variable approach to investigate the causal relationship between international graduates and the number of new international workers entering the U.S. economy. They find significant differences in transition rates between STEM and non-STEM students: while STEM students have a local transition rate close to 0.25 for master’s graduates and 0.16 for bachelor’s graduates, non-STEM students exhibit transition rates not significantly different from zero. [Beine et al. 2022]

 Financial Services

• New experimental evidence on payday lending finds that more experienced borrowers are highly cognizant of their likelihood of borrowing, and payday lending is important to fulfilling many borrowers’ liquidity needs: Behavioral economics research suggests that cognitive biases such as time-inconsistent preferences may lead borrowers to overestimate their ability to repay loans and take on suboptimal levels of debt. While new state and federal legislations have been implemented to protect low-income consumers, many have argued that restricting payday loan access may excessively harm consumers facing liquidity shocks. In a study of 1,205 individuals obtaining payday loans in Indiana, borrowers completed a survey where they were asked the likelihood of taking out another loan over the next two months. Borrowers almost perfectly predicted their likelihood of taking out another loan, with the average borrower predicting a 70% probability of re-borrowing versus a realized outcome of 74%. In contrast, in an expert elicitation, professional economists expected the average borrower would estimate their likelihood of re-borrowing at 40%, suggesting a much higher rate of misprediction than occurred. Moreover, analysis finds that while many borrowers would like to avoid payday loan debt in the future, their liquidity needs necessitate borrowing. Therefore, legislations that ban payday loans reduce consumer welfare, while policies and financial products that encourage more precautionary savings and limit repeat payday borrowing increases welfare. [Allcott et al. 2022]
• Simple nudges can prevent some consumers from entering long-term credit card payment delinquency: in a large-scale randomized control trial of credit card holders at an Australian bank, researchers find that among account holders who were 30 days overdue on credit card payments, receiving a digital reminder of a missed payment increased the likelihood of fully repaying by 2.4 pp. However, the reminder had no effect on users with lower credit scores, highlighting that while behavioral interventions may be effective for “forgetful” users, they cannot overcome real income constraints faced by many consumers. [Campbell et al. 2022]
• Re-designing microfinance loan structure with social norms in mind can improve borrower incentives and increase repayment rates: while prior literature suggests that social mechanisms can reduce the moral hazard associated with microfinance lending, new experimental evidence identifies shame and guilt of loan delinquency as the key underlying forces. In a quasi-field experiment in Pakistan, researchers analyze repayment rates under four different microfinance contract types, varying the liability type (whether the ability to get a future loan depended on individual or group repayment of the initial loan) and the repayment setting (whether borrowers repaid in a public or private setting). The study finds that individual liability with public repayment (a contract type exploiting shame aversion) and joint liability with private repayment (a contract type exploiting guilt aversion) were almost equally effective, increasing repayment rates by 23% and 17% respectively. This finding suggests that implementing joint liability or public repayment into microfinance contracts can be equally effective mechanisms for improving borrower outcomes. [Dhami et al. 2022]
• Data gaps and persistent underrepresentation of women and minority start-up founders create identification challenges in empirical research: a new literature review finds a diverse set of barriers – such as income and wealth inequality, role models and social capital, information asymmetries that reinforce discrimination, and risk preferences – may inhibit startup formation and funding for diverse founders. However, establishing strong channels of causality remains challenging due to limited data availability and small sample sizes that result in little to no statistical power in standard regression analyses. [Ewens 2022]

Healthcare

• New Lancet paper investigates the global burden of cancer attributable to risk factors: from 2010 to 2019, global risk-attributable cancer deaths increased by 20.4% and DALY loss increased by 16.8%. An analysis of the Global Burden of Disease 2019 dataset shows that smoking, alcohol use, and high body mass index (BMI) were the leading risk factors for risk-attributable cancer deaths and DALYs globally. [GDB Collaborators 2022]
• A natural language processing (NLP) analysis of 1.8 million critical care records from a large US hospital reveals linguistic evidence of gender and ethnicity bias in medicine: researchers find that consistent with nonlinguistic evidence of bias in medicine, physicians focus more on the emotions of women compared to men and focus more on the scientific and bodily diagnoses of men compared to women. Physicians also attend to fewer emotions of Black and Asian patients compared to White patients. Content disparities are clear across ethnicities, as physicians focus less on the pain of Black and Asian patients compared to White patients in their critical care notes. [Markowitz 2022]
• Researchers review key interactions between climate change and cardiovascular health to identify interventions that will provide co-benefits for people and planet: the environmental and social consequences of global warming will increase the prevalence and severity of cardiovascular risk factors over this century. Six opportunities – transition from high red-meat to plant-based diets, transition from vehicular to active transportation, expanding greenspaces, transition to clean energy, providing clean stoves, and practicing resource efficiency in healthcare – are identified as interventions that can mitigate climate change while reducing the global burden of cardiovascular diseases. [Hadley et al. 2022]
• Preliminary results from randomized clinical trial did not find statistically significant reduction in adverse birth outcomes from intensive nurse home visiting program: improving birth outcomes for low-income mothers is a public health priority, and intensive nurse home visiting has been proposed as an intervention to improve these outcomes. A South Carolina-based randomized clinical trial that involved 5,670 Medicaid-eligible, pregnant participants was implemented to investigate the effect of intensive nurse home visiting program (prenatal to two years postnatal) on three primary outcomes: adverse birth outcomes, interbirth intervals of less than 21 months, and major injury of concern of abuse or neglect in the child’s first 24 months. Preliminary results did not find statistically significant reduction in adverse birth outcomes such as preterm birth, low birth weight, and perinatal mortality. The assessment on the other two outcomes - birth spacing and early childhood care – are still under investigation.  [McConnell et al. 2022]

Food and Agriculture

• Researchers examine household food waste by food category to identify food waste causes and interventions: an analysis of an Australian national food waste benchmarking survey finds that households’ perceptions on the safe consumption of food after the best before date have a significant negative association with all food waste categories. Fruit and vegetable waste is by far the largest food waste category in terms of food waste amount. Results also reveal that overprovisioning leads to large amount of food waste in fruits and vegetables, dairy, and frozen foods. Among four potential areas of behavioral intervention (food labelling, over-provisioning, food storage, and food disposal), storage intervention is identified as the most promising entry point for reducing household food waste. [Ananda et al. 2022]
• Agriculture is estimated to have driven at least 90% of tropical deforestation between 2011 and 2015, although around half of agriculture-driven deforestation was not due to actively managed agricultural land: agriculture expansion is a primary cause of tropical deforestation and therefore a key driver of greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and the degradation of ecosystem services vital to the livelihoods of forest-dependent and rural populations. A synthesis of existing research and datasets finds that while the overwhelming majority (90 to 99%) of tropical deforestation occurs in landscapes where agriculture is the dominant driver of tree cover loss, a smaller share (45 to 65%) of deforestation is due to the expansion of active agricultural production into forests. The remainder of agriculture-driven deforestation does not result in the expansion of productive agricultural land, but instead is a result of activities such as speculative clearing, land tenure issues, short-lived and abandoned agriculture, and agriculture-related fires spreading to adjacent forests. Moreover, the majority (>60%) of expansion of agriculture into forests is driven by domestic demand in producer countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, especially for beef and cereals. [Pendrill et al. 2022]
• Meta-analysis finds that applying an optimal – not excessive – amount of nitrogen (N) fertilizers can increase cereal yield by 62% and enhance yield stability: fertilizer production is highly emissions intensive, and overapplication of fertilizer generates significant negative environmental impact. However, applying an optimal amount of fertilizer may result in positive effects on yield and stability. Researcher synthesizes 467 N fertilizer application studies around the world and finds that long-term N application of an appropriate amount increases both cereal yield and its stability. Applying N with phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) fertilizers generates the highest and most stable cereal yield. This study suggests that optimal, not excessive, N fertilizer application can contribute to reducing global food insecurity by enhancing cereal yield and stability. [Liang 2022]
• Increasing the use of food system by-products as livestock and aquacultural feeds has considerable potential to increase global food supply: many livestock and aquaculture feeds compete for resources with food production. Increasing the use of food system by-products and residues as feed could reduce this competition. Researchers analyze the potential of replacing food-competing feedstuff — such as cereals, whole fish, vegetable oils and pulses that account for 15% of total feed use — with food system by-products and residues. Considering the nutritional requirements of food-producing animals, including farmed aquatic species, this replacement could increase the current global food supply by up to 13% in terms of kcal and 15% in terms of protein content. [Sandstrom 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.