Efficient Semiparametric Estimation of Quantile Treatment Effects

This paper develops estimators for quantile treatment effects under the identifying restriction that selection to treatment is based on observable characteristics. Identification is achieved without requiring computation of the conditional quantiles of the potential outcomes. Instead, the identification results for the marginal quantiles lead to an estimation procedure for the quantile treatment effect parameters that has two steps: nonparametric estimation of the propensity score and computation of the difference between the solutions of two separate minimization problems. Root‐N consistency, asymptotic normality, and achievement of the semiparametric efficiency bound are shown for that estimator. A consistent estimation procedure for the variance is also presented. Finally, the method developed here is applied to evaluation of a job training program and to a Monte Carlo exercise. Results from the empirical application indicate that the method works relatively well even for a data set with limited overlap between treated and controls in the support of covariates. The Monte Carlo study shows that, for a relatively small sample size, the method produces estimates with good precision and low bias, especially for middle quantiles.     

Patterns of american jewish fertility

The 1971 National Jewish Population Survey provides cross-sectional data on achieved fertility, detailed birth histories, and other information on family formation for a countrywide representative sample of 5,303 ever-married women. Cohort analysis shows that—although at lower levels—Jewish fertility has followed the general trends of American population.     

Life on the Edge: Balancing Gendered and Occupational Identities among Unauthorized Mexican Migrant Roofers

Scholars have addressed the economic, gendered, and emotional dimensions of migration, especially as migrants move from origin to destination. However, scholarship on return migration and the subjective experiences of reintegrating to origin communities is poorly understood. In this paper, we examine the return migration of formerly unauthorized migrants who labored as roofers in the United States. We argue that the migration process redefines men’s masculinity as they attempt to balance family life in Mexico and their occupational lives in the U.S., all of which are essential for their identity but remain separated by an international border. We draw on 40 in-depth interviews with return migrant men in a small city in Guanajuato, Mexico to examine the emotional tensions men experience regarding the decision to remain in close proximity to family in Mexico and a desire to return again to their economically and emotionally fulfilling occupations in the U.S. We find that migrants’ nostalgia for prior U.S. labor market experience, in juxtaposition to reentry into the Mexican labor market, competes with current feelings of happiness and contentment obtained through family reintegration. These competing feelings, together with economic need, help explain the complex meaning of migration for return migrant men. We conclude by suggesting that once men have been exposed to U.S. life, the occupational identity becomes a “pull” that encourages future migration trips.     

Informal Learning for Citizenship Building in Shared Struggles for Rights: Cases of Political Solidarity Between Colombian and Spanish Organisations

Dominant discourses and practices in international cooperation have been characterised by depoliticisation and unequal power relationships. However, a number of more transformative experiences of cooperation also exist, where joint work between Northern and Southern social organisations is linked with a more political perspective. These kinds of experiences can be considered processes of informal learning in social action: through shared actions, strategies and frameworks and through interaction between organisations, institutions and the grassroots, informal and multidimensional learning processes occur in the people and organisations engaged. The study approaches four cases of networks that have linked Spanish and Colombian organisations which promote advocacy and social mobilisation for the defence of human rights in Colombia. The results show that people engaged in the cases experience intense learning processes that are relevant for the construction of solidarities and a radical global citizenship, but that these processes are also replete with limitations, tensions and challenges.     

Measuring cross-country technological catch-up through variable-parameter FDH

In this paper, we estimate indices of technological catch-up for a sample of 52 countries through the FDH approach with variable scaling parameters proposed in Kerstens and Vanden Eeckaut (1999). We show that this technique has significant advantages for the international comparisons of productivity and, more generally, wherever the assumption of convexity for the production set is not likely to be appropriate. We want to thank Laurens Cherchye, Hal Fried, Kristian Kerstens and an anonymous referee for useful comments on preceding versions of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies. Financial support from the MURST, Italy, is gratefully acknowledged.     

Multidimensional poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean: new evidence from the Gallup World Poll

This paper studies poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean from a multidimensional perspective, exploiting the Gallup World Poll, a survey that provides a unique opportunity to perform intercountry comparisons. By applying factor analysis we find that welfare can be appropriately summarized by three dimensions: income, subjective welfare and “basic needs”. Another finding is that the US$ 1 line appears to be a reasonable cut-off value to measure food deprivation.     

Quis custiodet ipsos custodes? How to detect and correct teacher cheating in Italian student data

The increasing diffusion of standardized assessments of students’ competences has been accompanied by an increasing need to make reliable data available to all stakeholders of the educational system (policy makers, teachers, researchers, families and students). In this light, we propose a multistep approach to detect and correct teacher cheating, which decreases the quality of student data offered by the Italian Institute for the Educational Evaluation of Instruction and Training. Our method integrates the “mechanistic” logic of the fuzzy clustering technique with a statistical model-based approach, and it aims to improve the detection of cheating and to correct test scores at both the class and student level. The results show a normalization of the scores and a stronger correction on data for Southern regions, where the propensity to cheat appears to be highest.