CSDE seminar presentation on family planning in Ethiopia

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I am presenting my paper "Family Planning and Fertility: Estimating Program Effects using Cross-sectional Data" today at the CSDE seminar series. The seminar runs from 12.30 to 1.30 PM and is at Thomson Hall, rm 125. You can find the current version of the paper here. The paper is joint with Kathleen Beegle and Luc Christiaensen. The abstract is:

This paper uses a novel method of identifying the effects of a family planning program when there is endogenous program placement and only cross-sectional data are available, a situation common in many developing countries. Using data from Ethiopia we find that access to family planning substantially reduces the number of children ever born for women without education; the reduction is especially pronounced for women younger than 20 and older than 30. Completed fertility, measured as children ever born for women aged 40 to 45, falls by more than one birth with access to family planning. These effects are statistically significant and substantially larger than previous studies have found. For women who have gone to school there is no evidence of an impact of family planning on fertility. Based on a relative small reduction in child mortality we argue that the effect on fertility is due to family planning access and not the concurrent presence of health facilities. Finally, family planning access reduces unwanted fertility, especially for older women.

Mark Anderson interviewed about Montana Meth Project

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My student, Mark Anderson was on Hawii Public Radio recently talking about his forthcoming paper in Journal of Health Economics showing that the Montana Meth Project had no discernible effect on meth use once the pre-existing downward trend is taken into account. You can listen to the interview. The paper is available from his home page. Mark will be on the job market this year.

New version of Sex Selective Abortions, Fertility and Birth Spacing

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I have revised and shorten my paper on sex selective abortions in India. You can find the new version here. I have also split off the appendix with additional figures. The appendix is available here. Abstract:

Previous research on sex selective abortions has ignored the interactions between fertility, birth spacing and sex selection. This paper presents a novel approach that jointly estimates the determinants of sex selective abortions, fertility and birth spacing, using data from India's National Family and Health Surveys. For well educated Indian women the predicted number of abortions during childbearing is six percent higher after sex selection became illegal than before while their predicted fertility is eleven percent lower and around replacement level. Women with less education have substantially higher fertility and do not appear to use sex selection.

Human Health and Climate Change

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I am co-author on a chapter on "Human Health and Climate Change" in the book "Reducing Poverty, Protecting Livelihoods, and Building Assets in a Changing Climate: Social Implications of Climate Change Latin America and the Caribbean." The book is edited by Dorte Verner and just came out from the World Bank. More information is available from World Bank Publications. Update: You can also read the book through the embedded book below. [issuu layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Flight%2Flayout.xml showflipbtn=true documentid=100708190344-b94b553ea2dc42089e4e36f33afb22a2 docname=9780821382387 username=World.Bank.Publications loadinginfotext=Reducing%20Poverty%2C%20Protecting%20Livelihoods%2C%20and%20Building%20Assets%20in%20a%20Changing%20Climate showhtmllink=true tag=adaptation width=420 height=315 unit=px]

Podcast on my sex selective abortion research

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I did a podcast with CSDE's Information Core Director, David Hyllegaard, on my recent research on the relation between fertility, birth spacing and the use of sex selective abortions in India. The announcement is at http://csde.washington.edu/news/notices/noticesPodcast_CPortner.shtml. There you can either download the MP3 file or see directions on how to get the podcast through iTunes.

Ghana

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I will be in Ghana from tomorrow until 22 June. Niels-Hugo Blunch and I are working on setting up a randomised evaluations of adult literacy programs in Ghana. Our paper, forthcoming in Economic Development and Cultural Change, explains more about the programs and their effects. Unfortunately, the data were not detailed enough for us to examine why there is a large positive effect of participation. The randomised evaluation is meant to address this question as described in the project summary.

Sex Selective Abortions, Fertility and Birth Spacing

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My paper on sex selective abortions in India is now available here. The abstract is below:

This paper presents a novel approach to estimating the determinants of sex selective abortions, using individual level data on fertility, birth spacing and birth outcomes. The decisions on fertility, abortions and birth spacing are closely related but have received little empirical attention. Theory predicts that lower fertility leads to more sex selective abortions, but abortions also increase the space between births and the decision to use sex selection may change with the distance from last birth. Using data from three rounds of the Indian National Family and Health Survey, low fertility women are shown to use sex selective abortions, whereas households with low cost of children do not. Despite legal efforts to curtail sex selective abortions, use is increasing over time. For women with eight or more years of education, the number of sex selective abortions expected during their childbearing has gone up by six percent from 1985-1994 to 1995-2006 for both urban and rural women. At the same time their predicted fertility has fallen to below replacement level for urban women and only slightly above for rural women. Finally, ignoring birth spacing leads to bias when censoring is important.