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1391. Measuring Economic Disadvantage During Childhood: A Group-Based Modeling Approach

Author:
Mary Clare Lennon, Robert L. Wagmiller, Philip M. Alberti, and J. Lawrence Aber
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Recent research suggest that child well-being and subsequent status attainment are influenced not only by the overall magnitude of exposure to family economic disadvantage during childhood, but also by the age of exposure and significant changes in family economic circumstances. Unfortunately, traditional measures of children's economic deprivation – such as, permanent and transitory income, persistent or cumulative poverty, and the number and length of poverty spells – fail to differentiate between exposure to disadvantage at different stages in childhood and largely ignore how family economic circumstances are changing over time. In this paper we propose a new method for assessing economic disadvantage during childhood that captures both children's overall levels of exposure to economic disadvantage and their patterns of exposure. This new method, which takes advantage of recent advances in finite mixture modeling, uses a longitudinal latent class model to classify children into a limited number of groups with similar histories of exposure to family economic disadvantage. Using this new methodology, group membership can be related to both family background characteristics and achievement in childhood and early adulthood, making it possible both to assess how family characteristics affect patterns of exposure to disadvantage during childhood and directly test alternative theories about the effect of different patterns of exposure on achievement. In this paper the relationship between background factors – such as race, parental education, and family structure – and group membership is investigated, as is the association between group membership and achievement in early adulthood. The use of this technique is demonstrated using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Development, and Economics

1392. Reducing Bias in Treatment Effect Estimation in Observational Studies Suffering from Missing Data

Author:
Jennifer Hill
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Matching based on estimated propensity scores (that is, the estimated conditional probability of being treated) has become an increasingly popular technique for causal inference over the past decade. By balancing observed covariates, propensity score methods reduce the risk of confounding causal processes. Estimation of propensity scores in the complete data case is generally straightforward since it uses standard methods (e.g. logistic regression or discriminant analysis) and relies on diagnostics that are relatively easy to calculate and interpret. Most studies, however, have missing data. This paper illustrates a principled approach to handling missing data when estimating propensity scores makes use of multiple imputation (MI). Placing the problem within the framework of the Rubin Causal Model makes the assumptions explicit by illustrating the interaction between the treatment assignment mechanism and the missing data mechanism. Several approaches for estimating propensity scores with incomplete data using MI are presented. Results demonstrating improved efficacy compared with existing methodology are discussed. These advantages include greater bias reduction and increased facility in model choice.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Economics, and Education

1393. Can Long-Run Restrictions Identify Technology Shocks?

Author:
Luca Guerrieri, Christopher Gust, and Christopher J. Erceg
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Gali's innovative approach of imposing long-run restrictions on a vector autoregression (VAR) to identify the effects of a technology shock has become widely utilized. In this paper, we investigate its reliability through Monte Carlo simulations using calibrated business cycle models. We find it encouraging that the impulse responses derived from applying the Gali methodology to the artificial data generally have the same sign and qualitative pattern as the true responses. However, we find considerable estimation uncertainty about the quantitative impact of a technology shock on macroeconomic variables, and little precision in estimating the contribution of technology shocks to business cycle fluctuations. More generally, our analysis emphasizes that the conditions under which the methodology performs well appear considerably more restrictive than implied by the key identifying assumption, and depend on model structure, the nature of the underlying shocks, and variable selection in the VAR. This cautions against interpreting responses derived from this approach as model-independent stylized.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology

1394. Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy: A Linear-Quadratic Approach

Author:
Pierpaolo Benigno and Michael Woodford
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We propose an integrated treatment of the problems of optimal monetary and fiscal policy, for an economy in which prices are sticky (so that the supplyside effects of tax changes are more complex than in standard fiscal analyses) and the only available sources of government revenue are distorting taxes (so that the fiscal consequences of monetary policy must be considered alongside the usual stabilization objectives). Our linear-quadratic approach allows us to nest both conventional analyses of optimal monetary stabilization policy and analyses of optimal tax-smoothing as special cases of our more general framework. We show how a linear-quadratic policy problem can be derived which yields a correct linear approximation to the optimal policy rules from the point of view of the maximization of expected discounted utility in a dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model. Finally, in addition to characterizing the optimal dynamic responses to shocks under an optimal policy, we derive policy rules through which the monetary and fiscal authorities may implement the optimal equilibrium. These take the form of optimal targeting rules, specifying an appropriate target criterion for each authority.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Economics, and International Trade and Finance

1395. India's National Security Challenges

Author:
V.P. Maki
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
Welcome everyone to this special lecture. It is for me a particular pleasure, as Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, to introduce our distinguished speaker this afternoon: General Ved Malik. It is difficult to introduce General Malik because his achievements are so many-and they all speak for themselves - so please forgive me if I go over material that you already know. One cannot but help mention that he has served as India's Chief of Army Staff during 1997 to 2000 and as Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee of the Indian Armed Forces during 1999-2000—and that he has received India's highest national award for distinguished military service.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, National Security, and Politics
Political Geography:
India and Southeast Asia

1396. CERI: Sudan. From one conflict to the next

Author:
Roland Marchal
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The peace agreements that were signed in May 2004 may imply the end of the war in South Sudan. In order to assess the likelihood of success, one has to discuss the changes after the Islamists were brought to power in 1989 by a military coup. Of special interest are the impacts of their internal divisions, the emergence of oil money as significant revenues for the State and the consequences of 9/11 in the Middle East. Moreover, difficulties to implement the agreements in South Sudan should not be underplayed. The underdevelopment of this region, the existence of militias still supported by Khartoum and the history of the civil war among Southern Sudanese could give room to bitter divisions and proxy wars involving Khartoum's government. The current crisis in Darfur reflects the weaknesses of the peace process despite a strong international involvement. Structural issues such as citizenship have not been addressed and this very crisis shows how little the regime intends to reform itself.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, and South Sudan

1397. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: Regional and Transatlantic Challenges

Author:
Roberto Aliboni
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Transatlantic Relations
Abstract:
The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) held their annual meeting in Naples on December 2-3, 2003. The Naples conference was the sixth in the series of such meetings since the founding conference of the partnership, which took place in Barcelona in November 1995. With an annual budget of €1 billion, the EMP is a process of “multi-bilateral” cooperation in the political and security; economic and financial; and social and cultural areas. It involves the European Union (EU), and Cyprus, Israel, Malta, Turkey, as well as seven Mediterranean Arab countries (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia) and the Palestinian National Authority. In Naples, the Ministers delivered only general declarations regarding contentious issues such as the situation in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian road map, and international terrorism. Predictable and incremental as it was, progress was nevertheless achieved on three main “baskets” of the partnership agenda.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus

1398. Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone

Author:
Ann Fitz-Gerald
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
This document looks at some of the important key processes that supported conflict resolution activities in Sierra Leone. It by no means provides a comprehensive analysis - rather it is designed to draw attention to some of the processes that were used to inform conflict resolution activities that might be being considered elsewhere. While many of these initiatives proved successful, mistakes were made thus the document is not meant to serve as an illustration of 'best practice' but more as a repository of ideas. Despite the 'health warnings' that should come with any documents that review the activity in Sierra Leone, important steps were taken towards developing more innovative practice and approaches within more holistic Security Sector Reform programmes. Moreover, Sierra Leone serves as a fairly unique example of a country requiring numerous reforms across the security sector, thus, much can be drawn from this single case study in terms of 'multiple entry points' and 'sequencing strategies'. This contrasts with many other country or regional case studies that may focus on a smaller number of reform imperatives.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Civil War
Political Geography:
Africa and Sierra Leone

1399. Networking the Networks: Supporting Regional Peace and Security Agendas in Africa

Author:
Ann M. Fitz-Gerald and Anicia Lala
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
The Mozambique Security Network Symposium was held in Maputo on 30 June-1 July 2003. The meeting gathered approximately sixty participants from government, regional and sub-regional organisations and civil society. The event was made possible through the support of the UK Government's African Conflict Prevention Pool and was facilitated by the Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR), a project funded by the United Kingdom that seeks to unite all actors and agencies in this field of study. Through the generous support of the United Nations Foundation, a number of representatives from Latin American countries also attended the meeting to draw on lessons learned and shared experiences from another southern region.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa, United Kingdom, United Nations, and Latin America

1400. A Possible Path to Change in US-Iran Relations

Author:
Mark Edmond Clark
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:
In 1999, I visited Belgrade one month before the start of Operation ALLIED FORCE as a guest of the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs to hear the perspectives of key officials on the possibility of a conflict between Yugoslavia and NATO. I heard a singular perspective that NATO would not use force and threats to do so were used only to get the regime of Slobodan Milosevic to respond to diplomatic efforts by the US and EU. There was simply a refusal to recognize that the threat of attack from NATO was real.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Middle East, and Yugoslavia