関 麻衣

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated school closures exacerbated the global learning crisis, especially for children in developing countries. Teaching at the right level is gaining greater importance in the policy arena to recover the learning loss. However, the focus on the noncognitive abilities of students influencing their ability to bridge learning gaps is still very limited. We investigate the long-term effects of the "self-learning at the right level" program, which is found to be effective in the short run in improving the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of disadvantaged students in Bangladesh. We revisit these students almost 6 years after the intervention to find that its effects on non-cognitive abilities remain perceptible, whereas those on cognitive abilities might have been attenuated. This study is among the few to examine the long-term effects of experimental educational interventions and shows that such interventions can effectively sustain students’ non-cognitive abilities amid academic disruptions.

This study examines whether leaders’ unethical behaviours discourage people from participating in activities initiated by community-based programmes, and whether the impact of unethical leadership is moderated by the genders of leaders and community members. We conducted a vignette experiment with 1,421 respondents in rural Sri Lanka. We find that village residents perceive: (1) leaders’ unethical conduct discourages residents’ intention to engage in community activities and (2) leaders’ unethical conduct reduces female residents’ engagement more than male residents’, regardless of leaders’ gender. The findings underscore the importance of addressing the low motivation issue, particularly among women, to engage in community activities.

This study investigates the effectiveness of a globally popular method of self-learning at the right level in improving learning outcomes---the cognitive and noncognitive abilities of disadvantaged students---in a developing country, Bangladesh. Using a randomized controlled trial design, we find substantial improvements in cognitive abilities measured by math test scores and catch-up effects in terms of noncognitive abilities or personality traits measured through a self-esteem scale. Moreover, our study is the first to use alternative cognitive ability measures, that is, time reduction as well as time-adjusted test score, which are critical dimensions of cognitive development. Subsequently, we investigate the long-term effects using students’ math results of the national-level exam. We find a reasonable longer-term impact on cognitive abilities 20 months after the intervention for younger students. Our estimates indicate that the program’s benefits exceed its costs.

This study investigates the effects of speed competition in classrooms on young pupils' learning outcomes. To examine how faster peers' speed affects slower pupils' speed and learning, we employ students' daily progress data in a self-learning programme at BRAC primary schools in Bangladesh. The programme's unique setting allows us to address the reflection problem reasonably well. While speed competition could generate negative consequences, our results show overall positive peer effects on problem-solving time and scores. The effects are stronger among peers with similar abilities, without negatively affecting others. Our results show efficiency gains from non-market competition in education and learning.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of a globally popular method of self-learning at the right level in improving learning outcomes|the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of disadvantaged pupils|in a developing country, Bangladesh. Using a randomized control trial design, we find substantial improvements in cognitive abilities measured by mathematics test scores and catch-up effects on aspects of non-cognitive abilities or personality traits measured by a self-esteem scale. We also find a longer-term impact on cognitive abilities regarding the math scores students obtained on national-level exams compared to the baseline test scores. Moreover, teachers' abilities to assess students' performance substantially improve. Our estimates indicate that the program's benefits exceed its costs. The above findings suggest that self-learning at the right level can effectively supplement the quality of primary education and hence address the learning crisis in developing countries.

Since the early 1980s, the firm entry rate and the rate of new entrepreneurship have trended downward in Canada. This article documents these trends and discusses potential explanations. A shift-share analysis suggests that industrial and demographic structure changes cannot explain these long-term trends, although population aging accounts for part of the decline in new entrepreneurship since around 2000. The article discusses other factors that could contribute to the downward trends: increased industrial concentration, changing labour market conditions, increased college wage premium, higher student debt, and government regulation. Some of these may be important, but more research is needed before firm conclusions can be reached.

Most families in the child protective services system also interact with the child support enforcement system. This study exploits a natural experiment in Wisconsin, created by the state's large regional variation in child support referral policy, to estimate a potentially important effect of child support enforcement on the duration of out-of-home foster care placement. The effect we examine is whether requiring parents to pay support to offset the costs of foster care delays children's reunification with a parent or other permanent placement. We find evidence of this unintended effect, which is important not only because longer foster care spells are expensive for taxpayers, but also because extended placements in foster care may have consequences for child well-being. Our results highlight the potential importance of cross-systems analysis and the potential consequences when the policies and fundamental objectives of public systems are inconsistently coordinated. We discuss the implications of our findings for child support and child protective services policy.