Pedagosko i psiholosko testiranje i procjenjivanje spadaju među najvažnije doprinose znanosti o ponasanju nasem drustvu i pružaju temeljna i znacajna poboljsanja u odnosu na ranije postupke. Iako se ne može ustvrditi da su svi testovi dovoljno usavrseni niti da su sva testiranja razborita i korisna, postoji velika kolicina informacija koje ukazuju na ucinkovitost kvalitetnih instrumenata u onim situacijama u kojima je njihovo koristenje potkrijepljeno validacijskim podacima. Pravilna upotreba testova može dovesti do boljih odluka o pojedincima i programima nego sto bi to bio slucaj bez njihovog koristenja, a također i ukazati na put za siri i pravedniji pristup obrazovanju i zaposljavanju. Međutim, losa upotreba testova može dovesti do zamjetne stete nanesene ispitanicima i drugim sudionicima u procesu donosenja odluka na temelju testovnih podataka. Cilj Standarda je promoviranje kvalitetne i eticne upotrebe testova te uspostavljanje osnovice za ocjenu kvalitete postupaka testiranja. Svrha objavljivanja Standarda je uspostavljanje kriterija za evaluaciju testova, provedbe testiranja i posljedica upotrebe testova. Iako bi evaluacija prikladnosti testa ili njegove primjene trebala ovisiti prvenstveno o strucnim misljenjima, Standardi pružaju okvir koji osigurava obuhvacanje svih relevantnih pitanja. Bilo bi poželjno da svi autori, sponzori, nakladnici i korisnici profesionalnih testova usvoje Standarde te da poticu druge da ih također prihvate.

Standards for educational and psychological testing

We investigate conditions sufficient for identification of average treatment effects using instrumental variables. First we show that the existence of valid instruments is not sufficient to identify any meaningful average treatment effect. We then establish that the combination of an instrument and a condition on the relation between the instrument and the participation status is sufficient for identification of a local average treatment effect for those who can be induced to change their participation status by changing the value of the instrument. Finally we derive the probability limit of the standard IV estimator under these conditions. It is seen to be a weighted average of local average treatment effects.

Evolution and Rationality Some Recent Game-Theoretic Results. Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects

All around the world in matters of governance, decentralization is the rage. Even apart from the widely debated issues of subsidiarity and devolution in the European Union and states’ rights in the United States, decentralization has been at the center stage of policy experiments in the last two decades in a large number of developing and transition economies in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The World Bank, for example, has embraced it as one of the major governance reforms on its agenda (for example, World Bank, 2000; Burki, Perry and Dillinger, 1999). Take also the examples of the two largest countries of the world, China and India. Decentralization has been regarded as the major institutional framework for the phenomenal industrial growth in the last two decades in China, taking place largely in the nonstate nonprivate sector. India ushered in a landmark constitutional reform in favor of decentralization around the same time it launched a major program of economic reform in the early 1990s. On account of its many failures, the centralized state everywhere has lost a great deal of legitimacy, and decentralization is widely believed to promise a range of benee ts. It is often suggested as a way of reducing the role of the state in general, by fragmenting central authority and introducing more intergovernmental competition and checks and balances. It is viewed as a way to make government more responsive and efe cient. Technological changes have also made it somewhat easier than before to provide public services (like electricity and water supply) relatively efe ciently in smaller market areas, and the lower levels of government have now a greater ability to handle certain tasks. In a world of rampant ethnic cone icts and separatist movements, decentralization is also regarded as a way of diffusing social and political tensions and ensuring local cultural and political autonomy. These potential benee ts of decentralization have attracted a very diverse range

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/089533002320951037

Decentralization of Governance and Development

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)31389-7.pdf

Early childhood development coming of age: science through the life course

This paper uses survey data from 13 countries to document the economic lives of the poor (those living on less than $2 dollar per day per capita at purchasing power parity) or the extremely poor (those living on less than $1 dollar per day). We describe their patterns of consumption and income generation as well as their access to markets and publicly provided infrastructure. The paper concludes with a discussion of some apparent anomalous choices.

The Economic Lives of the Poor

Decentralized targeting of an antipoverty program

Galasso and Ravallion assess the impact of Argentina's main social policy response to the severe economic crisis of 2002. The program aimed to provide direct income support for families with dependents for whom the head had become unemployed due to the crisis. Counterfactual comparisons are based on a matched subset of applicants not yet receiving the program. Panel data spanning the crisis are also used. The authors find that the program reduced aggregate unemployment, though it attracted as many people into the workforce from inactivity as it did people who would have been otherwise unemployed. While there was substantial leakage to formally ineligible families, and incomplete coverage of those eligible, the program did partially compensate many losers from the crisis and reduced extreme poverty. This paper is a product of the Poverty Team, Development Research Group. The work reported is part of the ex-post evaluation of the World Bank's Social Protection IV Project in Argentina.

Social Protection in a Crisis: Argentina's Plan Jefes y Jefas

Our objectives were to document and examine socioeconomic gradients across a comprehensive set of child development measures in a population living in extreme poverty, and to interpret these gradients in light of findings from the neuroscience literature We assessed a nationally representative sample of 3-6-year-old children (n = 1332) from 150 communities of Madagascar using standard tests of development We found that children whose families were in the top wealth quintile or whose mothers had secondary education performed significantly better across almost all measures of cognitive and language development and had better linear growth compared with children of women in the lowest wealth quintile or women with no education These differences between children of low and high socioeconomic position were greatest for receptive language, working memory, and memory of phrases The mean difference in the scores between children in the highest and lowest socioeconomic status categories doubled between age 3 and age 6, and the biggest gaps across socioeconomic position by age 6 were in receptive language and sustained attention Our results suggest that even within the context of extreme poverty, there are strong associations between family socioeconomic status and child development outcomes among preschool children, and that the language and executive function domains exhibit the largest gradients

Socioeconomic gradients and child development in a very low income population: evidence from Madagascar.

This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled Social protection in a crisis : Argentina's plan Jefes y Jefas, conducted between 2002 and 2003 in Argentina. The study observed the impact of Argentina's main social policy response to the severe economic crisis of 2002 on the individual level. It is clear that the eligibility criteria were not enforced. Large shares of the recipients were women. The program reduced unemployment by about 2.5 percentage points. The work requirement represented a positive opportunity cost for participants. The program had a small effect on the poverty rate and a somewhat larger effect on the incidence of extreme poverty. Funding for the study derived from the Government of Argentina.

/pdf/social-protection-in-a-crisis-argentina-s-plan-jefes-y-jefas-2z5e6fit6j.pdf

Social protection in a crisis : Argentina's Plan Jefes y Jefas

We propose a method for estimating the mean impact of an assigned social program when it is not feasible to do a pre-intervention baseline survey but it is feasible to track ex-participants. In our triple-difference estimator; measured outcome changes are compared between continuing participants and matched ex-participants, after netting out the outcome changes for a matched comparison group who never participated. With sufficient followup observations one can test the joint conditions required for correctly identifying the gains to current participants. We apply the method to a workfare program in Argentina. Significant impacts on participants' current incomes

https://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco7377/papers/ravallion%20et%20al%202005.pdf

Emanuela Galasso

Papers

Decentralized targeting of an antipoverty program

Social Protection in a Crisis: Argentina's Plan Jefes y Jefas

Socioeconomic gradients and child development in a very low income population: evidence from Madagascar.

Social protection in a crisis : Argentina's Plan Jefes y Jefas

What Can Ex-Participants Reveal about a Program's Impact?.