Georgetown University

About: Georgetown University is a education organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Cancer. The organization has 23377 authors who have published 43718 publications receiving 1748598 citations. The organization is also known as: GU & Georgetown.

Does Child Labor Displace Schooling? Evidence on Behavioral Responses to an Enrollment Subsidy

Abstract: Bangladesh's Food-for-Education program, offering a stipend considerably less than the mean child wage, was enough to ensure nearly full school attendance among participants. The enrollment subsidy also reduced the incidence of child labor, but that effect accounted for only a small proportion of the increase in school enrollment. Ravallion and Wodon try to determine whether children sent to work in rural Bangladesh are caught in a poverty trap, with the extra income to poor families from child labor coming at the expense of the children's longer-term prospects of escaping poverty through education. The poverty trap argument depends on children's work being substitutable for schooling. Casual observations and the descriptive statistics available from surveys seem to offer little support for the argument. To explore the question more deeply, Ravallion and Wodon use a targeted school stipend to identify how much child labor substitutes for schooling. They find that Bangladesh's Food-for-Education program is a strong incentive for school attendance. A stipend with a value considerably less than the mean child wage was enough to ensure nearly full school attendance among participants. The enrollment subsidy also reduced the incidence of child labor, an effect that accounted for only a small proportion of the increase in school enrollment. The reduction in the incidence of child labor among boys (girls) represents about one-quarter (one-eighth) of the increase in their school enrollment rate. Parents are clearly substituting other uses of their children's time to secure the current income gain from access to the program, with modest impact on earnings from their children's work. The authors' tests were limited. Work may well displace time for doing homework or attending after-school tutorials, for example. Ravallion and Quentin were unable to identify such effects from the data available. There may also be other welfare losses to children from work (such as exposure to an unsafe working environment) as well as welfare gains (such as skills learned from working that enhance returns to schooling). But their results do lead them to question the seemingly common view that child labor is a major factor perpetuating poverty in Bangladesh by keeping children from poor families out of school. This paper - a joint product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group, and Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Region - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to study behavioral responses to social programs. The authors may be contacted at mravallion@worldbank.org or qwodon@worldbank.org.

Does Religion Matter in Corporate Decision Making in America

Abstract: We examine how corporate culture influences firms' behaviors and, more specifically, how the level of religiosity in a firm's environment affects its investment decisions. We focus on one country (the U.S.) to minimize differences in legal and economic environments. Prior research suggests a positive link between individual religiosity and risk aversion. We find that this relation also influences organizational behavior. Specifically, firms located in counties with higher levels of religiosity display lower degrees of risk exposure as measured by variances in equity returns or in returns on assets. In turn, such firms require a higher internal rate of return before investing. They exhibit a lower rate of investment either in tangible capital or in R&D but generate a more positive market reaction when they announce new investments. Their long-term growth is also lower. Finally, we document that CEOs are more likely to join firms with similar religious environment as their last firm when they switch employers. All results are both economically and statistically significant. They are robust to many alternative specifications that minimize the risk of omitted variables or endogenous relations.

Long-Term Functional Outcomes after Treatment for Localized Prostate Cancer

Abstract: Background The purpose of this analysis was to compare long-term urinary, bowel, and sexual function after radical prostatectomy or external-beam radiation therapy. Methods The Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study (PCOS) enrolled 3533 men in whom prostate cancer had been diagnosed in 1994 or 1995. The current cohort comprised 1655 men in whom localized prostate cancer had been diagnosed between the ages of 55 and 74 years and who had undergone either surgery (1164 men) or radiotherapy (491 men). Functional status was assessed at baseline and at 2, 5, and 15 years after diagnosis. We used multivariable propensity scoring to compare functional outcomes according to treatment. Results Patients undergoing prostatectomy were more likely to have urinary incontinence than were those undergoing radiotherapy at 2 years (odds ratio, 6.22; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.92 to 20.29) and 5 years (odds ratio, 5.10; 95% CI, 2.29 to 11.36). However, no significant between-group difference in the odds of urinary incontinence ...

Neighborhood Effects on Crime for Female and Male Youth: Evidence from a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment

Abstract: The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) demonstration assigned housing vouchers via random lottery to public housing residents in five cities. We use the exogenous variation in residential locations generated by MTO to estimate neighborhood effects on youth crime and delinquency. The offer to relocate to lower-poverty areas reduces arrests among female youth for violent and property crimes, relative to a control group. For males the offer to relocate reduces arrests for violent crime, at least in the short run, but increases problem behaviors and property crime arrests. The gender difference in treatment effects seems to reflect differences in how male and female youths from disadvantaged backgrounds adapt and respond to similar new neighborhood environments.