Publications

The goal of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was to end the dependency of needy parents on government benefits, in part by promoting marriage. The pre-reform welfare system was widely believed to discourage marriage because it primarily provided benefits to single mothers. However, welfare reform may have actually decreased the incentives to be married by giving women greater financial independence via the program's new emphasis on work. This paper uses Vital Statistics data on marriages and divorces during 1989-2000 to examine the role of welfare reform (state waivers and TANF implementation) and other state-level variables on flows into and out of marriage. The results indicate that welfare reform has led to fewer new divorces and fewer new marriages, although the latter result is sensitive to specification and data choice.

This article analyzes adoption and impacts of Bt cotton in Argentina against the background of monopoly pricing. Based on survey data, it is shown that the technology significantly reduces insecticide applications and increases yields; however, these advantages are curbed by the high price charged for genetically modified (GM) seeds. Studies show that farmers’ average willingness to pay is less than half the actual technology price. A lower price would not only increase benefits for growers, but could also multiply company profits.

It’s a familiar if not fully explained paradigm. A “World Class University” (WCU) is supposed to have highly ranked research output, a culture of excellence, great facilities, and a brand name that transcends national borders. But perhaps most importantly, the particular institution needs to sit in the upper echelons of one or more world rankings generated each year by non-profit and for-profit entities. That is the ultimate proof for many government ministers and for much of the global higher education community. Or is it? It is not that current rankings are not useful and informative. The problem is that they represent a very narrow band of what it means to be a leading, or what might be best called a “Flagship” university within a region, within a nation. Further, WCU advocates do not provide much guidance, or knowledge, on what organizational behaviors and methods can lead to greater productivity in research, teaching, and public service that can best help universities meet the needs of the societies they must serve. In this essay I attempt to advocate the notion of the Flagship University as a more relevant ideal -- a model for public institutions, and perhaps some private institutions, one that could replace, or perhaps supplement and alter the perceptions, behaviors, and goals of ministries and universities in their drive for status and influence on society. It is a model that does not ignore international standards of excellence focused largely on research productivity, but is grounded in national and regional service, and with a specific set of characteristics and responsibilities that, admittedly, do not lend themselves to ranking regimes. Indeed, one goal here is to articulate a path, using the language of the Flagship University, that de-emphasizes rankings and that helps broaden the focus beyond research to relevancy and responsibility. Flagship Universities are research-intensive institutions, or in the process of becoming so, but have wider recognized goals. The great challenge for the network of universities that are truly leaders in their own national higher education systems is to shape their missions and, ultimately, to meaningfully expand their role in the societies that gave them life and purpose.  The Flagship University profile explored here includes an outline of mission, culture, and operational features, and is intended as a possible construct for this cause.

Using survey-data from Peru, this paper evaluates the impact of a pilot farmerfield-school (FFS) program on farmers’ knowledge of integrated pest management (IPM) practices related to potato cultivation. We use both regression analysis controlling for participation and a propensity score matching
approach to create a comparison group similar to the FFS participants in observable characteristics. Results are robust across the two approaches as well
as with different matching methods. We find that farmers who participate in the program have significantly more knowledge about IPM practices than those in the non-participant comparison group. We also find suggestive evidence that improved knowledge about IPM practices has the potential to significantly improve productivity in potato production.