Tues., Nov. 24, 2009
Seminar
Last Seminar until January 26
Family Change and Poverty in Appalachia
Dan Lichter,
Poverty Team Member and Prof. of PAM & Sociology
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
The reauthorizing
legislation of the 1996 welfare reform bill ( Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act) provides 150 million dollars annually for healthy marriage initiatives and fatherhood programs. An explicit goal is to increase the share of children living with both biological parents. Indeed, a stable marriage is often viewed as a pathway from poverty and welfare dependency. In historically-disadvantaged regions of persistent and deeply-entrenched poverty, such as Appalachia, family decline is often viewed as
consequence rather than a
cause of poverty and welfare dependence. The goal of this paper is to take stock of recent changes in family structure in Appalachia and to evaluate the implications for changing patterns of county and regional poverty. What is the link, if any, between the so-called “retreat from marriage” and family poverty? Specifically, we estimate spatial regression models that evaluate the effects of changing county characteristics, including female headship, on changing rates of poverty, while controlling for state and county fixed effects. This is accomplished using county data from the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses and recently released data from the 2005-2007
American Community Survey. We then simulate sub-regional poverty rates in the absence of post-1990 changes in family patterns and compare them with observed rates in 2005-2007. Our analyses of new data provide an empirical benchmark for research on changing patterns of poverty in Appalachia vis-à-vis the rest of the nation.
Tues., Dec. 1, 2009
Team Meeting
Team meeting held in lieu of seminar
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
Tues. Jan. 26, 2010
Seminar
Why Poor People Don’t Vote: Income, Inequality, and Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective
Chris Anderson,
Poverty Team Member and Prof. of Government
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
Feb. 2, 2010
Seminar
Precarious Employment: Potential Consequences of the Economic Downturn
Susan Christopherson, Poverty Team Member and Prof. of City & Regional Planning
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
Feb. 9, 2010
Seminar
Improving Job Access and Outcomes: The Ways to Work Program
Matthew Freedman, Poverty Team Member and Prof. of Labor Economics
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
February 11-12, 2010
Workshop
Moving Out of Poverty: The Economic and Environmental Impacts of Programs Aimed at Mitigating Spatial Mismatch
225 ILR Conference Center
Feb. 16, 2010
Seminar
Stutter-Step Models of College Entry
Steven Morgan, Poverty Team Member and Prof. of Sociology
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
February 23, 2010
Seminar
Measuring Mobility with Repeated Cross-Sections
David McKenzie, Development Research Group, World Bank
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
Co-sponsored by Development Economics
Efforts to measure persistent poverty and economic mobility require following
individuals over long periods of time. However, panel data on individuals is
still rare in developing countries, and in many cases when it is available, the
time frame is short. A complementary approach may therefore be to utilize the
regular cross-sectional surveys carried out in many countries. We develop new
methods for constructing mobility measures using repeated cross-sections, and
compare them to the results from using genuine panel data in Vietnam, in order
to assess how promising such approaches may be.
March 2, 2010
Seminar
Early Academic Performance, Grade Repetition, and School Attainment in Senegal: A Panel Data Analysis
David Sahn, Poverty Team Member and Prof. of Economics in the Division of Nutritional Sciences
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
Little is known about how early academic ability is related to subsequent educational outcomes
in developing country environments, because the panel data needed to analyze this question
have been lacking. In this study we take advantage of unique data from Senegal, combining
test score data for children from the second grade with information on their subsequent school
progression from a follow-up survey conducted seven years later. We find that measures of
skills from early in primary school, corrected for measurement error using multiple test
observations per child, are very strongly positively associated with later school progression. A
plausible interpretation is that parents invest more in a child’s education when the returns to
doing so are higher. The results point to the need for remedial policies to target lagging
students early on to reduce early dropout. A current policy targeting poorly performing
students is grade repetition, which is pervasive in Francophone Africa. Using variation across
schools in test score thresholds for promotion to identify the effects of second grade repetition,
we find that a repeated student is more likely to leave school before completing primary than a
student with similar ability who is not held back, pointing to the need for alternative measures
to improve skills of lagging children.
March 9, 2010
Seminar
David Brady, Duke University
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
March 16, 2010
Seminar
Karen Macours, Johns Hopkins University
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
March 23, 2010
Seminar cancelled due to spring break.
March 30 , 2010
Seminar
Democracy and the African Middle Class, in Comparative Perspective
Nic van de Walle, Poverty Team Member and Prof. of Government
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
March 30, 2010
University Lecture
More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City
William Julius Wilson, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Univ.
7:00 p.m., Statler Auditorium
Sponsored by the ISS Poverty Team, CSI, BLCC and University Lectures Program
April 6, 2010
Seminar
TBA
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
April 13, 2010
Seminar
The Wealth Gap Between High and Low Castes in India
Seema Jayachandran, Economics ,Stanford University
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
Co-sponsored by Development Economics
People from low castes in India have considerably less wealth than high-caste counterparts with the same income. This pattern is analogous to the finding in the U.S. that the black-white wealth gap is larger than the black-white income gap. This project uses data from India's National Sample Survey to explore several hypotheses about why wealth accumulation is lower among disadvantaged groups in India.
April 20, 2010
Poster Session
Student Research Grant Presentations: Part I
12:00-1:30 p.m., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
April 27, 2010
Poster Session
Student Research Grant Presentations: Part II
12:00-1:30 P.M., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
May 4, 2010
Seminar
Tom Mroz, Clemson University
12:00-1:30 P.M., ISS Conference Room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
