Replication Studies of Development Impact Evaluations

Six years ago, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) launched a programme to promote and fund replication studies of impact evaluations in international development. We designed the programme with the objective of improving the quality of evidence for development policy-making, using replication research to both validate the results of published impact evaluations and build the incentives for more transparent and high quality research going forward. The programme’s focus is internal replication, which uses the original data from a study to address the same question as that study. This Journal of Development Studies special issue compiles the majority of completed 3ie-funded replication studies initiated in the first years of the programme. In all cases the pure replication components of these studies are generally able to reproduce the results published in the original article. Most of the measurement and estimation analyses confirm the robustness of the original articles or call into question just a subset of the original findings. These replication studies mostly focus on providing additional information about the impacts of the interventions – especially additional information that can be important for interpreting the articles for the purpose of policy-making.     

We all want it, but we don't know what it is: toward a standard of affordability for health insurance premiums

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148), or ACA, requires that U.S. citizens either purchase health insurance or pay a fine. To offset the financial burden for lower-income households, it also provides subsidies to ensure that health insurance premiums are affordable. However, relatively little work has been done on how such affordability standards should be set. The existing literature on affordability is not grounded in social norms and has methodological and theoretical flaws. To address these issues, we developed a series of hypothetical vignettes in which individual and household sociodemographic characteristics were varied. We then convened a panel of eighteen experts with extensive experience in affordability standards to evaluate the extent to which each vignette character could afford to pay for one of two health insurance plans. The panel varied with respect to political ideology and discipline. We find that there was considerable disagreement about how affordability is defined. There was also disagreement about what might be included in an affordability standard, with substantive debate surrounding whether savings, debt, education, or single parenthood is relevant. There was also substantial variation in experts' assessed affordability scores. Nevertheless, median expert affordability assessments were not far from those of ACA.     

Unsafe sex: do feelings matter?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among self-efficacy for condom use during distress (SE-Condom Distress), self-efficacy related to general HIV prevention skills (SE-HIV), and HIV risk behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge. Two hundred and twenty two adolescents with psychiatric disorders between 13 and 18 years-old participated. Participants completed measures related to HIV Self-Efficacy, HIV Attitudes, and Sexual Behaviors. Self-efficacy for condom use during distress (SE-Condom Distress) was significantly associated with more HIV protective behaviors. Controlling for observed covariates, SE-Condom Distress was the only variable significantly associated with consistent condom use in a multiple logistic regression (OR=2.43). Self-efficacy regarding condom use during affective arousal is closely associated with HIV-related attitudes and behaviors. Clinicians need to be alert to subtle signs of distress as adolescents contemplate safer sexual behavior.     

Comparative study of electrochromic enhancement of latent fingerprints with existing development techniques

To address the challenge of capturing latent fingerprint evidence from metal surfaces, a new method of latent fingerprint enhancement based on electrochromic polymer films has recently been developed. Here, we present a study comparing the development and visualization of nonvisible fingerprints on stainless steel substrates using this electrochromic enhancement approach with three classical methods (dusting, wet powder, and cyanoacrylate fuming). Two variants of the electrochromic enhancement method were utilized with polyaniline and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) as the electrochromic materials. Fingerprint samples were taken from different donors (varying in age and gender) and were exposed to different environments for systematically varied periods of time (up to 28 days). The environments represent plausible evidential scenarios: left under ambient conditions, washed with aqueous soap solution, washed with acetone, submerged in water, and maintained at elevated temperature. The electrochromic enhancement procedure frequently outperformed the traditional methods, particularly for samples exposed to more challenging histories.     

The Developing Habitus of the Anti‐Social Behaviour Practitioner: From Expansion in Years of Plenty to Surviving the Age of Austerity

Specialist anti‐social behaviour units are common within social housing providers, with many established in response to the policies of the New Labour governments of 1997–2010. These units now find themselves operating in a different political and financial environment. Following the English riots of 2011, the Coalition government, whilst imposing budgetary cuts across the public sector, called on social housing providers to intensify their role in tackling disorder. This article explores the habitus or working cultures within anti‐social behaviour units post‐New Labour. It does so through empirical research conducted in the aftermath of the English riots. The research finds that practitioners view their work as a core function of social housing provision. They have developed an understanding of human behaviour, which crosses the criminal and social policy fields with a wide skillset to match. A number of factors including national policy, community expectations, and multi‐partnership engagement influence their dynamic working culture.     

Personality,socioeconomics and crime: An international comparison

Abstract

Data from 37 countries were collected that permitted exploratory analysis of national profiles in terms of personality dimensions: psychoticism (P); extraversion (E); and neuroticism (N) and four socioeconomic indices: gross domestic product (GDP); human development index (HDI); economic growth (EG); and family size (FS) and their relationship to rates of criminal activity. Findings indicated that the socioeconomic indicators did correlate with national crime patterns. High crime nations were more likely to be the richer, industrialised countries having smalles average family size. Personality variables proved more elusive. P surprisingly was not correlated with incidence of crime rather E appeared mast closely linked to rate and type of crime. Findings are discussed in terms of measurement error and possible explanatory mechanisms.