Unveiling Trail Making Test: visual and manual trajectories indexing multiple executive processes

Submitted by Mark Senanu Ku… on
EfD Authors:

AbstractThe Trail Making Test (TMT) is one of the most popular neuropsychological tests for executive functions (EFs) assessment. It presents several strengths: it is sensitive to executive dysfunction, it is easy to understand, and has a short administration. However, it has important limitations. First, the underlying EFs articulated during the task are not well discriminated, which makes it a test with low specificity. Second, the pen-and-paper version presents one trial per condition which introduces high variability.

Explaining the poor-rich gap in anthropometric failure among children in India: An econometric analysis of the NFHS, 2021 and 2016

Submitted by Ishita Datta on
EfD Authors:

This study address persistent wealth inequality in anthropometric failure in India by analyzing two rounds of the Indian National Family Health Survey (2019-2021 and 2015-2016) focusing on children aged 0–59 and 6–23 months, reveals a negative wealth gradient for each anthropometric failure measure. Over 60% of the anthropometric failure burden lies in the poorest wealth groups. Notably, even with similar risk factors, children from poorer backgrounds exhibit higher prevalence. Maternal BMI, media exposure, and sanitary facility access are key factors explaining the poor-rich gap.

Health, Policy Design

Tree diversity in a tropical agricultural-forest mosaic landscape in Honduras

Submitted by Marianela Arguello on
EfD Authors:

AbstractBiodiversity decline in the tropics requires the implementation of comprehensive landscape management where agricultural systems are necessarily an integral element of biodiversity conservation. This study evaluates the potential for taxonomic biodiversity conservation within an intensive livestock-agricultural-forest mosaic landscape in Catacamas, Honduras. Tree sampling was performed in 448 plots set up within different forest and agricultural land uses: secondary forests, agroforestry coffee plantations, agriculture, pastures, live fences and riparian forest.

Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Forestry

Does Green Infrastructure Work? Precipitation, Protected Areas, Floods and Landslides

Submitted by Marianela Arguello on

We use monthly municipality data for the period 2000-2015 in Guatemala and monthly district data for the period 1992-2019 in Costa Rica. We define relevant catchment areas using water flows to the population centers of the administrative units. Then, we calculate the precipitation inside and outside Pas within the relevant catchment areas, and test how the frequency of floods and landslides is affected by whether rain falls inside or outside PAs. We use a two-way fixed-effects panel data model. For Guatemala, we find no robust statistically significant effects on these types of disasters.

Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Forestry, Land

Do social comparisons and negative shocks affect the subjective well‐being of the poor? Evidence from the Peruvian Amazon

Submitted by Mark Senanu Ku… on

AbstractThis paper contributes to the literature by testing the effect of a household's relative position on its subjective well‐being. Our results show that both self‐perceived status and relative income have significant effects on the subjective well‐being of households located in the Peruvian Amazon. The paper also considers negative random shocks and shows that non‐agricultural shocks have a negative effect on subjective well‐being.

Air pollution exposure and COVID-19: A look at mortality in Mexico City using individual-level data

Submitted by Mark Senanu Ku… on

We use individual-level data to estimate the effects of long- and short-term exposure to air pollution (PM2.5) on the probability of dying from COVID-19. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to look at this relationship using individual-level data. We find that for Mexico City there is evidence of a positive relationship between pollution and mortality that significantly grows with age and that appears to be mostly driven by long- rather than short-term exposure.

Air Quality, Covid-19

Stated preferences outperform elicited preferences for predicting reported compliance with COVID-19 prophylactic measures

Submitted by Luat Do on
EfD Authors:

This article studies the behavioral and socio-demographic determinants of reported compliance with prophylactic measures against COVID-19: barrier gestures, lockdown restrictions and mask wearing. The study contrasts two types of measures for behavioral determinants: experimentally elicited preferences (risk tolerance, time preferences, social value orientation and cooperativeness) and stated preferences (risk tolerance, time preferences, and the GSS trust question).

Health, Policy Design