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931. The US War on Terror in Afghanistan and its Impact on FATA in Pakistan

Author:
Fazal Wahid
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The US counterattack on Afghanistan in October 2001 changed in the overall security structure of the region. The Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters escaped the US bombing of the Tora Bora in Afghanistan and crossed into the FATA region of Pakistan. Pakistan’s military operations against these militants in the FATA provided a boost to the latter’s cause and almost the entire FATA experienced a sort of Talibanization. The US war in Afghanistan had its spillover effect in FATA. Terrorist activities unleashed in the entire Pakistan and turmoil in Afghanistan added fuel to this situation. FATA’s special constitutional status hwas addeding to the woes of Pakistan and subsequently FATA was merged with the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). This paper analyzes the impact of the US war in Afghanistan on the FATA region of Pakistan.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

932. Bureaucratic Efficiency as Determinant of Trade Openness in SAARC Countries

Author:
Rabia Saghir
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The study explores how bureaucratic efficiency aeffects international trade in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Sri Llanka. A composite indicator of government effectiveness is used to measure bureaucratic efficiency and the model is estimated by using the SYS-GMM. It is well recognized that bureaucratic efficiency is vital to the enhancement of trade, whereas the result shows that a negative relationship exists between bureaucratic efficiency and trade openness. Similarly, encouraging links exists between government size and international trade as the government provides different services to enhance the trade inat the international market
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

933. A Comparative and Narrative Analysis: Executive Leader as Team Builder at the University Level

Author:
Uzma Syeda Gilani
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
This study aims to compare and narrate the difference in the role of team building, through self-assessed inventory by VC (Executive Leader), observation sheet filled in by co-workers as well as the narrated view of executive leaders regarding team-building of the newly established University of the region. A concurrent triangulation mixed-method design was followed. Vice-Chancellors of all Public universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan constitute the population of the study. According to the design, the same sampling technique was used. Four ViceChancellors of newly established Universities and five observers among their co-workers of each VC were taken as respondents of the study. There were significant differences among the self-assessed views of VCs regarding team building and views of their coworkers and narrative views of executive leaders at newly established universities. For team leadership, egalitarian style, knowledge of emotional intelligence and target-oriented communication are recommended.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

934. HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series

Author:
David Deming
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) jobs are a key contributor to economic growth and national competitiveness. Yet STEM workers are perceived to be in short supply. This paper shows that the “STEM shortage” phenomenon is explained by technological change, which introduces new job skills and makes old ones obsolete. We find that the initially high economic return to applied STEM degrees declines by more than 50 percent in the first decade of working life. This coincides with a rapid exit of college graduates from STEM occupations. Using detailed job vacancy data, we show that STEM jobs change especially quickly over time, leading to flatter age-earnings profiles as the skills of older cohorts became obsolete. Our findings highlight the importance of technology-specific skills in explaining life-cycle returns to education, and show that STEM jobs are the leading edge of technology diffusion in the labor market.
Topic:
International Organization, International Political Economy, Science and Technology, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Global Focus

935. HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series

Author:
Maciej Kotowski
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper investigates the formation of production and trading networks in an economy with general interdependencies and complex property rights. The right to exclude,a core tenet of property, grants asset owners a form of monopoly power that influences granular economic interactions. Equilibrium networks reflect the distribution of these ownership claims. Inefficient production networks may endure in equilibrium as firms multi-source to mitigate hold-up risk. Short supply chains also reduce this risk, but may preclude the production of complex goods. A generalized Top Trading Cycles algorithm, applicable to a production economy, identifies equilibrium outcomes in the model. Such outcomes can be decentralized via a price system.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, International Affairs, Intellectual Property/Copyright, and National & provincial initiatives
Political Geography:
America

936. Corporate Purpose in Play: The Role of ESG Investing

Author:
John Gerard Ruggie
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
On August 19, 2019, the U.S. Business Roundtable (BR), comprising the CEOs of more than 200 of America’s largest corporations, issued a new mission statement on “the purpose of a corporation” (BR, 2019a). The press release noted that each periodic update on principles of corporate governance since 1997 had endorsed the principle of maximizing shareholder value. In contrast, the new statement commits signatory CEOs “to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders” (BR, 2019b). “[Milton] Friedman must be turning in his grave,” a Fortune magazine article declared (Murray, 2019)
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

937. Bound to Happen: Explanation Bias in Historical Analysis

Author:
Richard Zeckhauser
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper argues that historical analysis, necessarily written with hindsight, often underestimates the uncertainties of the past. We call this tendency explanation bias. This bias leads individuals – including professional historians – to imply greater certainty in causal analyses than the evidence justifies. Their analyses will treat what is plausible to be probable. We offer a few intuitions about why explanation bias exists, its relation to other well-established psychological biases, what it leads to, and how it might be combatted. Appreciating the depth of uncertainty and ignorance in our world is critical for accurately understanding, interpreting, and drawing from the past to illuminate the present and the near future
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

938. Targeted Debt Relief and the Origins of Financial Distress: Experimental Evidence from Distressed Credit Card Borrowers

Author:
Will Dobbie
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
We study the drivers of financial distress using a large-scale field experiment that offered randomly selected borrowers a combination of (i) immediate payment reductions to target short- run liquidity constraints and (ii) delayed interest write-downs to target long-run debt constraints. We identify the separate e?ects of the payment reductions and interest write-downs using both the experiment and cross-sectional variation in treatment intensity. We find that the interest write-downs significantly improved both financial and labor market outcomes, despite not taking effect for three to five years. In sharp contrast, there were no positive e?ects of the more immediate payment reductions. These results run counter to the widespread view that financial distress is largely the result of short-run constraints.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

939. The Intergenerational Effects of Parental Incarceration

Author:
Will Dobbie
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
We estimate the causal effects of parental incarceration on children’s short- and long-run outcomes using administrative data from Sweden. Our empirical strategy exploits exogenous variation in parental incarceration from the random assignment of criminal defendants to judges with different incarceration tendencies. We find that the incarceration of a parent in childhood leads to a significant increase in teen crime and significant decreases in educational attainment and adult employment. The effects are concentrated among children from the most disadvantaged families, where criminal convictions increase by 10 percentage points, high school graduation decreases by 25 percentage points, and employment at age 25 decreases by 29 percentage points. In contrast, there are no detectable effects among children from more advantaged families. These results suggest that the incarceration of parents with young children may significantly increase the intergenerational persistence of poverty and criminal behavior, even in affluent countries with extensive social safety nets.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Affairs, and Prisons/Penal Systems
Political Geography:
Global Focus

940. Measuring Bias in Consumer Lending

Author:
Will Dobbie
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper tests for bias in consumer lending using administrative data from a high-cost lender in the United Kingdom. We motivate our analysis using a new principal-agent model of bias, which predicts that profits should be higher for the most illiquid loan applicants at the margin if loan examiners are biased. We identify the profitability of marginal applicants using the quasi-random assignment of loan examiners. Consistent with our model, we find significant bias against immigrant and older applicants when using the firm’s preferred measure of long-run profits, but not when using the short-run measure used to evaluate examiner performance. Keywords: Discrimination, Consumer Credit
Topic:
Debt, International Political Economy, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus