Ethnologue: Languages of the World

r 9HE purpose of this paper is to explore a hypothesis, based on acIcumulating evidence, regarding the character of inventions likely to issue from the research laboratories of the large industrial corporations. Simply put, this hypothesis may be stated as follows: with few exceptions, the large industrial laboratories are likely to be minor sources of major (radically new and commercially or militarily important) inventions; rather they are likely to be major sources of essentially "improvement" inventions. Put more precisely, the hypothesis states that the proportion of all minor inventions originating in the large industrial laboratories is likely to exceed the proportion of all major inventions originating in these laboratories. Note that the stress on the relative importance of these laboratories as sources of improvement inventions is not necessarily a denigration of the economic importance of this contribution. The cumulative effect of these improvement inventions may be, and often has been, of substantial importance over long periods of time for advancing technology, investment opportunities, and economic growth. The stress on improvement inventions as the principal product of the research laboratories of the large industrial corporations is meant simply to emphasize that, whatever the importance of their contributions, most of the latter is not likely to involve radically new inventive activity. I cannot claim originality for this hypothesis. After it suggested itself in the course of my investigations, I discovered that others, some of them in the most unlikely positions,2 had earlier said much the same thing. But, apart from occasional remarks, I can find no discussions attempting to explain or justify it. And because, if reasonably accurate, it has numerous ramifications, I have felt the need to set down an extended analysis of 1 I wish to thank members of the Seminar on Law and Technology, sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Law School under the auspices of the Ford Foundation, for their many helpful comments on this paper. Especially do I wish to thank Professors Jacob Schmookler, Robert Merrill, John Stedman, Harrison White, and John Heath. 2 See particularly the statement quoted below (p. 114) of D)r. Frank Jewett, former president of Bell Laboratories.

The journal of political economy

To the extent that students benefit from high-achieving peers, tracking will help strong students and hurt weak ones. However, all students may benefit if tracking allows teachers to present material at a more appropriate level. Lower-achieving pupils are particularly likely to benefit from tracking if teachers would otherwise have incentives to teach to the top of the distribution. We propose a simple model nesting these effects. We compare 61 Kenyan schools in which students were randomly assigned to a first grade class with 60 in which students were assigned based on initial achievement. In non-tracking schools, students randomly assigned to academically stronger peers scored higher, consistent with a positive direct effect of academically strong peers. However, compared to their counterparts in non-tracking schools, students in tracking schools scored 0.14 standard deviations higher after 18 months, and this effect persisted one year after the program ended. Furthermore, students at all levels of the distribution benefited from tracking. Students near the median of the pre-test distribution benefited similarly whether assigned to the lower or upper section. A natural interpretation is that the direct effect of high-achieving peers is positive, but that tracking benefited lower-achieving pupils indirectly by allowing teachers to teach at a level more appropriate to them.

Replication data for: Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya

Contents Volume IIIA: Preface. Analytical Tools. Introduction (J. Behrman, T.N. Srinivasan). Data and econometric tools for development analysis (A. Deaton). Human resources: Empirical modeling of household and family decisions (J. Strauss, D. Thomas). Applied general equilibrium models for policy analysis (J.W. Gunning, M. Keyzer). Resources, Technology, and Institutions. Introduction (J. Behrman, T.N. Srinivasan). Savings, credit and insurance (T. Besley). Technological change and technology strategy (R.E. Evenson, L.E. Westphal). Institutions and economic development (J.Y. Lin, J.B. Nugent). Poverty, institutions, and the environmental-resource base (P. Dasgupta, K.-G. Maler) Contents Volume IIIB: Policy Reform, Stabilization, Structural Adjustment and Growth. Introduction (J. Behrman, T.N. Srinivasan). Policy lessons from development experience since the second world war (A. Krueger). Poverty and policy (M. Lipton, M. Ravallion). Power, distortions, revolt and reform in agricultural land relations (H. Binswanger et al.). Human and physical infrastructure: investment and pricing policies in developing countries (E. Jiminez). Structural adjustment, stabilization and policy reform: domestic and international finance (V. Corbo, S. Fischer). Trade and industrial policy reform (D. Rodrik). The contributions of endogenous growth theory to the analysis of development problems: an assessment (P. Bardhan).

/pdf/handbook-of-development-economics-16bnyptd1x.pdf

Handbook of development economics

The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences, there is a specific pattern of economic transmission whereby demand-side shocks propagate upstream (to input-supplying industries) and supply-side shocks propagate downstream (to customer industries) and that there is a tight relationship between the direct impact of a shock and the magnitudes of the downstream and the upstream indirect effects. We then investigate the short-run propagation of four different types of industry-level shocks: two demand-side ones (the exogenous component of the variation in industry imports from China and changes in federal spending) and two supply-side ones (TFP shocks and variation in knowledge/ideas coming from foreign patenting). In each case, we find substantial propagation of these shocks through the input-output network, with a pattern broadly consistent with theory. Quantitatively, the network-based propagation is larger than the direct effects of the shocks. We also show quantitatively large effects from the geographic network, capturing the fact that the local propagation of a shock to an industry will fall more heavily on other industries that tend to collocate with it across local markets. Our results suggest that the transmission of various different types of shocks through economic networks and industry interlinkages could have first-order implications for the macroeconomy.

Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration

We document an important consequence of bride price, a payment made by the groom to the bride’s family at marriage. Revisiting Indonesia’s school construction program, we find that among ethnic gro...

/pdf/bride-price-and-female-education-ma61ttppbl.pdf

Bride Price and Female Education

Traditional cultural practices can play an important role in development, but can also inspire condemnation. The custom of bride price, prevalent throughout sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia as a payment by the groom to the family of the bride, is one example. In this paper, we show a perhaps surprising economic consequence of this practice. We revisit one of the best-studied historical development projects, the INPRES school construction program in Indonesia, and show that previously found small effects on female enrollment mask heterogeneity by bride price tradition. Ethnic groups that traditionally engage in bride price payments at marriage increased female enrollment in response to the program. Within these ethnic groups, higher female education at marriage is associated with a higher bride price payment received, providing a greater incentive for parents to invest in girls' education and take advantage of the increased supply of schools. However, we see no increase in education following school construction for girls from ethnicities without a bride price tradition. We replicate these findings in Zambia, where we exploit a similar school expansion program that took place in the early 2000s. While there may be significant downsides to a bride price tradition, our results suggest that any change to this cultural custom should likely be considered alongside additional policies to promote female education.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Using data from Pakistan, we show that existing methods produce unbiased and reliable estimates of teacher value added (TVA) despite significant differences in context. Although effective teachers increase learning substantially, observed teacher characteristics account for less than 5 percent of the variation in TVA. The first two years of tenure and content knowledge correlate with TVA in our sample. Wages for public sector teachers do not correlate with TVA, although they do in the private sector. Finally, teachers newly entering on temporary contracts with 35 percent lower wages have similar distributions of TVA to the permanent teaching workforce.

/pdf/teacher-value-added-in-a-low-income-country-1i2xhqwh0s.pdf

Teacher Value Added in a Low-Income Country

Using a randomized controlled trial, we study whether a negotiation skills training can improve girls' educational outcomes in a low-resource environment. We find that a negotiation training given to eighth-grade Zambian girls significantly improved educational outcomes over the next three years, and these effects did not fade out. To better understand mechanisms, we estimate the effects of two alternative treatments. Negotiation had much stronger effects than an informational treatment, which had no effect. A treatment designed to have more traditional girls' empowerment effects had directionally positive but insignificant educational effects. Relative to this treatment, negotiation increased enrollment in higher-quality schooling and had larger effects for high-ability girls. These findings are consistent with a model in which negotiation allows girls to resolve incomplete contracting problems with their parents, yielding increased educational investment for those who experience sufficiently high returns. We provide evidence for this channel through a lab-in-the-field game and follow-up survey with girls and their guardians. JEL Codes: D13, I24, J16, O15.

/pdf/negotiating-a-better-future-how-interpersonal-skills-4x941iuagm.pdf

Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Intergenerational Investment

Policies may change the incentives that allow cultural practices to persist. To test this, I study matrilocality and patrilocality, kinship traditions that determine daughters' and sons' post-marriage residences, and thus, which gender lives with and supports parents in their old age. Two separate policy experiments in Ghana and Indonesia show that pension policies reduce the practice of these traditions. I also show that these traditions incentivize parents to invest in the education of children who traditionally coreside with them. Consequently, when pension plans change cultural practices, they also reduce educational investment. This finding further demonstrates that policy can change culture.

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/pdf/doi/10.1257/aer.20190098

Natalie Bau

Papers

Bride Price and Female Education

Bride Price and Female Education

Teacher Value Added in a Low-Income Country

Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Intergenerational Investment

Can Policy Change Culture? Government Pension Plans and Traditional Kinship Practices