urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool priskool priskool 2007-01-29T06:59:51Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:4213 2007-01-29T06:59:51Z 2007-01-29T06:59:51Z and again i change my focus. i hope for the last time. it's getting down to the wire, i can taste the end of this ridiculously long time spent working on one paper.<br /><br />Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have become a popular development tool. Research has shown that the banks help participants, but that they have failed to reach the poorest of the poor. This paper expands on this issue by analyzing whether MFIs affect income inequality. Using a dataset from Freedom from Hunger this paper finds there is relatively no change in income inequality in the program communities with the MFI verse similar control communities without the MFI. The regression analysis provides a possible explanation showing participation was correlated with an 11% increase in income, but the rich and poor participated equally in the program. These results suggest that MFIs in practice are not living up to their hype of massive poverty alleviation, but they are still reaching more of those in need than their critics have argued. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:3864 2007-01-18T05:59:27Z 2007-01-18T06:01:59Z Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have become a popular development tool. Research has shown that banks help participants, but that they have failed to reach the poorest of the poor. My paper focuses on whether the increase in income in the participant group leads to an increase in income inequality in the community. Using a dataset from Ghana I found that although there is about a 10% increase in income for the participant group, there is no change in inequality in the communities with MFIs compared to similar control communities without MFIs. This is consistent with the view that there many be spillover effects which help those outside of the participant group.<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><br />Things that don't make sense about what I'm saying:<br /><br />1) if there is indeed a significant spillover effect than the incomes of non-participants would increase too, thus understating the effect of participation on increasing incomes...but then you should also see a significant, negative coefficient for the control variable because not being in the control group should be correlated with a higher income in the 1996 regression. This isn't the caset hough, the coefficient for the control group is insignificant. Atleast it wasn't positive...<br /><br />2) when I originally graphed the income quartiles and broke it down by group I saw that income inequality increased in every group: program, participant, non participant, and control. but then why does income inequality not change when measured by gini...<br /><br />3) i'm using monthly income...isnt that weird?<br /><br />4) i'm not analyzing income inequality on the community level, i'm lumping all the program communities together and finding the gini and making income quartile plots for that data and all the control commmunities together and doing the same thing. they're all from the same region in Ghana but like community 1 (program) and community 3 (control) are probably just as close to each other as two program communities or two control communities. The whole point of the research is the communities are randomly selected so program communities dont share any characteristics that control communities wouldn't have...other than having the MFI. Oh and I'm not analyzing it at the community level because then I'd have like 10 people and it'd be too small a sample<br /><br />5) it's a 10% increase on a very small amts of income since its per month. The median income for participants in 1993 was like 2 dollars. So how much does a 10% increase even really mean? Maybe there's no change in income in equality because the income increase for the participants is actually not substantial enough to cause an effect. Well, I do have a sort of answer to that. It depends on who you look at. The graph of the income quartiles tells a lot. The median income of the top quartile changed from 11 dollars to 58 dollars. That's a pretty huge change. But then the bottom quartile did not change and stayed 0 dollars (the 2nd to bottom quartile was also a very small change in comparison from 0 to 6). So basically there was a substantial effect- just not for everyone that participates. <br /><br />6) time! elissa and i talked about this and i think its an important point. 3 years is really not a lot of time for spillover effects to occur. People don't generally change business behavior that much during such a short time period. The lack of change in income inequality is likely related to other factors. But it might have atleast in PART been because of these spillover effects and that's important because the haven't been discussed. In 3 years we saw the major benefits of microfinance in increasing incomes of participants so atleast the time period is long enough to show that. And then we also know that communities in Ghana are very closely knit with strong relationship ties between extended families. Many of the other exisiting loan and consumption smoothing (insurance-like) opportunities are informal and through family members or people in personal networks. So increasing the incomes of some people in a community in Ghana may lead everyone to have more avaiable money for disasters, loans, ect. <br /><br />I feel like I'm starting to understand what I'm trying to say. I know there's a lot of flaws in my argument and weaknesses, but from my reading I know that's true of every study that's been done especially in microfinance where the data is hard to get reliably. It's coming together, but I feel like I need more time. <br /><br /><br /><a name="cutid2"></a><br />TOMORROW/FRI AGENDA: -rerun all the asset/income regression and put them into the table<br /> -clean up the literature review a little bit and make sure citations are <br /> right, but do not spend a lot of time on this. this is for benham and he prob <br /> won't read it that much. focus on the analysis, work on the lit review next <br /> week<br /> -make sure to put something about the GINI index in the meth<br /> -do the descriptive stats ttests and make the tables look nice<br /> -sign chart<br /> -asset quartiles<br /> -make sure income quartiles are right, put them in the paper<br /> -example of the change in income? example of the change in community level <br /> income dispersion? (if you do a kernal density graph this should be it)<br /> -stop doing kernal density graphs<br /> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:3824 2006-12-12T16:55:36Z 2006-12-12T16:55:36Z Q:What's the average loan size and loan period? What's the comparison between loan size and income? <br /><br />As of March 1997, in all the credit w/ education programs operating in ghana (55 credit associations, about 1500 participants, avg loan size is cedis equivalent of $78 dollars for loan period of 4 months. Average for my dataset from Lower Pra Bank: $60.39 (avg savings: $7.38)<br /><br />Issue w/ exchange rates apparently huge devaluation of cedis between 93 and 96, from 695 to 1690 cedis to the dollar. <br /><br />Q: Why is the Gini Coefficient so much lower for the group of participants than nonparticipants or control? Is it because of a variation in demographic factors?<br /><br />According to the FFH Impact Report the groups are the same socioeconomically (asset value) and by literacy and schooling. However, they do differ in the participate groups have slightly older women with more children. Also had lost more children, no significant difference in alive children. Also more likely to be engaged in non-farm work. Percentage literate is higher in participate group, but not significantly different.<br /><br />Why don't we just ask them? FFH qualitative follow up survey on 121/152 of the future nonparticipants. Why didn't you join?<br /><br />25% not interested in working capital loan, engaged in farming, had no time, no good loan investment ideas<br />22% moved from the area, unable to meet weekly meeting requirement<br />16% fear of repayment<br />7% felt repayment would be a problem<br />14% had not heard about or understood the program<br /><br />So even FFH says the poorest are probably not participating. Then why is there no significant difference in income quartiles or asset values of participants vs. non participants vs. controls in the baseline survey.<br /><br />Why....hmmmmm? urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:3523 2006-12-07T04:45:26Z 2006-12-07T04:45:26Z so this is important to catch you up on where i am before that last post...<br /><br />the regression i ran for the relative income just didn't seem very valid. i mean how can i interpret the coefficient considering i squared the relative income, what's causing what, and does it even represent inequality? i'm not sure, but michael suggested the model doesnt really work well for what im trying to get at which is basically what happens to the income distribution when the program is started. <br /><br />So what did I do instead of the regression?<br /><br />1) Kernal Density Plot, these are basically like fancy histograms where you can see how many people made each level of income and it shows the distribution of income well in the sample, so i can compare between 93 and 96 by group. from this it look like in 93 most people were making the same amt for the participant group, but in 96 some of those people made more flattening it out<br /><br />2) Graph of Income Quartile Averages- So I looked income quartiles and their averages and the change of these over time. Basically for all 3 groups the income quartiles change is highest for the top two or three quartiles. <br /><br />3) Gini Coefficient- The most popular way of measuring inequality and my most confusing result. The Gini Coefficient showed that although the change in Gini was highest for the participant group the coefficient itself was much lower at about .3 while the non participant and control groups had higher .5 or .6 Ginis. So why did this happen? There must be some set of characteristics that make the participant group similar compared to the non-participant and control groups which are more diverse. The question is what are these characteristics? urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:3120 2006-12-07T04:37:39Z 2006-12-07T04:37:39Z So my presentation to the honors class was fine, but CNISS fellows really kind of went crazy with the criticism. So they suggest I:<br /><br />1) do a bivariate, univariate analysis of the demographic and other characteristics that I have for the individuals across my sample groups...in english-&gt; look at the average or distribution of age in the participant group and compare it to the control and non participant group to see if there are differences<br /><br />2) from this i can generate a theory for why people choose to participate in these programs...or who ends up participating. is the self-selection related to income, age, kids?<br /><br />3) come up w/ a theoretical basis for why i used the controls i did. or throw out the controls and only use ones with a theoretical basis and add new ones that they might not have used before. the rerun the tests and look at the results<br /><br />4) do a density graph of the program group as a whole and then the future participate group (93 dataset only), see if the future participant group comes from the middle of this distribution<br /><br />4) clean up the paper/presentation by focusing on what's new and important while summarizing what i replicated and redid using the regression, make sure to include the rational behind everything i decided to do esp the demographic controls<br /><br />5) don't freak out. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:2990 2006-11-27T08:01:25Z 2006-11-27T08:01:25Z So a lot has changed since that Michael Sherraden meeting. I have been neglecting this poor journal...<br /><br />There was this phase when I wanted to test the effects of just the non-credit aspects of microfinance programs since a lot of them offer business/nutrition education as well as loans. Unfortunately I couldn't access the data on the subject to get a control group. I thought about doing some sort of approximate but it was difficult and not convincing even to me. I did find some relationship between people answering that they would consider profits first when starting a business and having higher profits. I think though this has more to do with an understanding of the term profit then anything else. Anyway it was still interesting.<br /><br />So that phase seemed unfeasible and not going anywhere. I started thinking about income inequality and relative income because of Becca's thesis on baseball player preformance and income inequality. So basically what I have done is retest the effect of participation on income controlling for a variety of demographic factors like age, married/not married, ect. This was signficant for both income and log income The result is significant and the coefficient is .10-&gt; in english participating in the microfinance program made you 10% increase in income. YAY good news for microfinance right? Well, it is good news. I wanted to also get at this issue of income inequalit and dispersion in the community. Basically my hypothesis is that due to entrepreneurial talent, income position, ect. microfinance is able to help some people a lot thus representing the programs as a whole as very sucessful even though they may not be able to help a lot of the participants. <br /><br />I noticed the change in standard deviation of income was greatest for the participation group. I also tested to see if there was correlation between relative income (which i measured as an individual variance by group) and participation. Relative income= (Income-mean)^2, or in english the distance an individual is away from the mean, squared to make positive/negative not matter. I found that there was a significant relationship for relative income but not for relative log income. The literature though uses log income instead of income to account for some of the natural tendency of income data to be skewed and include outliers. The relationship between relative income and participation was large though, meaning participation caused a $1143 increase in the relative income of participants in 1996. In 1993 there was a significant positive $9 increase as a result of being a "future participant" which means that even before the program there was a slight increase that might be attributed to entrepreneurial talent or whatever. But it was very small in considering what the effect is after the program. <br /><br />So what does this mean? Well basically my hypothesis that income is increased by the program but only for a certain group of people why the rest dont do as well is true. But there's no way to know why these people do well and other don't- is in innate ability, amt of income, income quartile to start off with, family, ect? Without the data tracking the same people from 1993 to 1996 there's no way to answer these questions. I think it would be really interesting to find out though. So there's where I am. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:2706 2006-10-19T03:18:24Z 2006-10-19T03:18:24Z So I had tea with michael sherraden and he suggested that I use some of the variable related to the children of the women to get at development (i.e. school, nutrition ect). Hmm, this is changing my thesis focus, but maybe it does make sense...<br /><br />On the stats front, I decided to change my data in STATA format from SPSS because that's the Econ software. Now I'm trying to figure out how to use STATA and its a little more manageable than SPSS but hard to start from scratch. Prof Sened set me up with this grad student to help me with stats so that's nice but I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing and will constantly need his help. Elissa and I talked through some things yest and she knows a lot and seems like she will be good help. She thinks that creating dummy variables for control, participating, and 1996 or 1993 survey will work to split up my data correctly as long as I can figure out how to put in the blank data for the control for the participating variable. I need to figure out how to do it STATA though.<br /><br />Enough of that if I havent already told you the nobel peace prize was awarded to Yunus the founder of the Grameen Bank, the world's first microfinance bank. Although the literature on the effectiveness of the Grameen Bank economically is mixed and rumors of corruption and beauocratic growth are everywhere, it is great for microfinance as an idea! WAhoooo.<br /><br />THIS WEEK I NEED TO:<br /><br />-get started writing the actual thesis: intro, lit review, description of data<br />-code the variables, separate the categories, and run the replication test<br />-prepare a presentation on the thesis for class thurs<br />-turn in a rough draft on wednesday night<br />-maybe start thinking about emailing jonathan morduch<br /><br />eeek. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:2373 2006-10-10T19:48:32Z 2006-10-10T19:48:32Z So I have a meeting w/ Michael Sherraden for Friday at 4pm!<br /><br />My "zero" draft paper is due two weeks from Wednesday. <br /><br />I met with Patrick and we think in the FFH paper they compared averages between the groups- control, participant, non-participant for each of the variables. So I'm going to try and replicate this using a t-test comparing averages finding standard deviations.<br /><br />confusing points...<br /><br />why are the standard deviations so large/greater than then the averages and yet the results are still statistically significant?<br /><br />they tested some demographic information across groups to find significant differences but then did not control for any of these factors if they were found signficant or so it seems because they didn't run any regressions? <br /><br />how in the world do i use SPSS program software to do anything?<br /><br />what i need to do...<br /><br />-figure out what they did, replicate a table from their paper<br />-meet with michael sherraden to work out the lit review and sort of background info, take suggestions<br />-start writing the parts of the paper the i can do (i.e. description of data, theoretical framework, rational for topic's importance...)<br />-find someone to help with stats? urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:2147 2006-10-07T04:45:41Z 2006-10-07T04:45:41Z So this journal really needed an update. I think I left with the first draft of my abstract. Well things have been going pretty well but I need to really keep going at this pace. Here's where I am:<br /><br />*I am definitely doing microfinance! I am so excited about it that I must apologize if I start boring you when you ask me a passing question about how I am doing.<br /><br />*I'm trying to still test whether it leads to business development<br /><br />*I HAVE DATA!!! Best thing that has happened recently! But yes I found a dataset from Freedom From Hunger, which I think I mentioned earlier with the excerpt from Jonathan Murdoch's interview. Anyway, I have the dataset which is great<br /><br />Right now I'm thinking of creative ways to get at showing business development that aren't as obvious as just the avg monthly profit data. Why? Well, first the Fanta language (the data is from Ghana) has a term for profit but often its interpreted more as "savings". So basically people are subtracting not only their business costs from their revenue but also their household costs and expenses before coming up with their "profit". This could actually have understated the effect of the program which is exciting (ooo my bleeding heart bias is coming into this research now isnt it? wait...i thought i was a capitalist bitch!).<br /><br />So what are my creative ways? Well right now I think the most interesting things that were in the survey are "expenditure on nonfarm tools or business supplies" and things about what assets people own like whether people own a radio. Often the first thing people buy when they move out of subsistence farming is a radio so it could be a measure of business success. I think the nonfarm tools/business supplies could be a good approximate as well. The problem is those indicators were not included in the actual dataset and were just used in a variables the researchers created. <br /><br />But those issues are kind of aside for now. My first step is to replicate what they did. Yes I need to take their data and try and find their results first. And then we'll see what happens. I am also trying to talk to Michael Sherraden from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work before my next meeting with Itai to get on track with the literature on the subject and because I mean he basically led the concept of microfinance with his theories on asset building for the poor and its amazing that we are at the same university and I didnt realize that. Thanks for reading! urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:1854 2006-09-16T21:10:46Z 2006-09-16T21:10:46Z i need to access this article....grrr<br /><br />Microcredit and microenterprise performance: impact evidence from Peru<br />Authors: Dunn E.; Arbuckle J.G.<br />Source: Small Enterprise Development, Volume 12, Number 4, 1 December 2001, pp. 22-33(12)<br />Publisher: ITDG Publishing<br /><br />I am finding some good papers that are sort of dealing with these issues of microfinance and business development. The problem is I can't figure out from the bibliographies where exactly the data comes from? <br /><br />I called Freedom from Hunger today and left a really awkward message. Everyone cites them in papers though so they must have a really good program for research going on. Need to call again on Monday.<br /><br />Maybe I need to start searching for gentrification data too as a backup... urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:1762 2006-09-15T16:32:35Z 2006-09-15T16:32:35Z here plz www.rand.org!<br /><br />So I met with Itai and Benham today both are like FIND DA DATA! I have like maybe 10 days. If I don't find this I need to switch topics. The problem is people have literally (and i do mean literally this time!) had conferences about how bad the data is right now for microfinance and how its hard to do research here. I don't know if I have the skills right now to deal with the statistical problems which would be involved even if I could find a good dataset...which right now I can't. The good news is I love this topic and I'm always thinking about it and wanting to do work for it. The bad news is it may be on its way out...<br /><br />BUT NO! I will find this data. The search continues... urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:1368 2006-09-07T05:40:23Z 2006-09-07T05:40:23Z Soooo school has officially started which means so has the life of my thesis. Basically, I'm still a bit lost about what I'm doing. I'm still bouncing between microfinance, gentrification, and HFCS. The HFCS model that I found in this one paper for sugar subsidies seems so ridiculously complicated that I kind of want to axe it, but at the same time it also is the one idea with a really clear question (i.e. would a reduction in sugar subsidies lead to a decrease in the use of HFCS). I really like my gentrification idea but the annoying thing is I can't really get any of the papers I found on it in full text. That shouldnt be too hard to solve, but I really need to know the models if I'm going to try and figure this one out. Basically though what's interesting about it? I think what happens to the previous displaced population- in the case of Williamsburg it would be the hispanics and hasidic jews. This takes out a lot of the workforce for factories located here, so does it have a negative economic impact or is this counterweighted by an influx of other economic activitiy (ie. shops, restuarants, bars, ect.). HMMMM<br /><br />okay but for the abstract I chose microfinance. Against my better desires I will post it, but its pretty thrown together. The data set I talked about with CARE doesn't even exist I just said that cause he said imagine your dream data.<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a> Q: Do microfinance programs lead to more entrepreneurial activity and business growth? <br /><br /> Microfinance programs have lately been widely discussed as one of the few successful types of aid programs operating in the developing world today. Many of these programs have loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans with very low default rates. The goal of microfinance though should be broader in its perspective. Is it actually capable of leading to sustained business development? If it is then it is certainly part of a solution that should receive more attention, but if it is not then perhaps microfinance is only a means of postponing poverty than ending it.<br /><br /> The organization CARE established a microfinance program that has been running for 10 years in Niger, Africa. By examining the data about the quantity and reason for loans given in 1995, and then the looking at data for any follow up loans it might be possible to track whether successful business have come out of this microfinance program. It would then be necessary to compare this rate of business development and growth with that of a nearby, similar town or city with no microfinance initiatives.<br /><br /> Although any conclusions drawn from this study would be only directly relevant to the CARE’s program, it may be able to be understood in a broader context. North’s theory that growth comes from strong institutions would be supported by microfinance program’s success in create business development because they aim to create strong institutions in countries where such institutions are lacking. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:1129 2006-08-22T15:16:43Z 2006-08-22T15:16:43Z So you may think I have been neglecting my research because of my posting absence, but it's not true. I've actually been doing a lot of work so here goes...<br /><br />The newest thing I'm pursuing right now is the microfinance idea. I think I talked about this before but when I say microfinance it's literally what you think of- small loans/savings institutions. They are started in developing countries and can help people out a lot. I emailed my teacher Joy Kiefer and she was really great about it and told me to check out her dissertation on the topic which is about the anthropological angle of a microfinance program in Africa started by www.care.org. She lived w/ a tribe of women in Niger, Africa where CARE's microfinance program was.<br /><br />Along with this idea is two websites. One which anj told me about - wwww.prosper.com, and one which I found researching, www.kiva.org. The way prosper works is anyone can put up a loan that they wanted funded and then anyone else can fund it in the US/Canada. Prosper works with banks so they can make payments go directly from people's bank accounts. People who want to fund loans bid on them by saying how low their interest rate would be. Kiva is the same idea except its with people to developing countries. So kiva takes microfinance programs in place and puts the loans online. So anyone from around the world can fund these loans (no interest) and you can fund part of them so you can contribute as little as 25 bucks. It's pretty cool. Since they started at the beginning of this year they have had 0 defaults.<br /><br />So now the problem is I just have programs that I like. There is a lot of data about them available. But I don't have a question. So here's an attempt...<br /><br />Has the CARE/kiva microfinance program led to higher entrepreneurial activity? Has this led to increases in the incomes of people in the group receiving loans from CARE/kiva? Has the program led to increases in the incomes of people in the society that are not in CARE/kiva?<br /><br />The problem is CARE hasn't contacted me back and prob won't have as much readily available data as kiva BUT kive is so new that it might be hard to do any legitimate testing. <br /><br />okay, still working on this...<br />as my thesis advisor so dramatically said in his email back to me : subject line: struggle, first sentence of body: "Priya, struggle is the name of the game"...<br /><br />if you read this whole thing thanks! urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:855 2006-08-02T20:14:20Z 2006-08-02T20:14:20Z I'm in a rut. I've been busy than usual, but I'm still in one. <br /><br />More ideas, still no focus:<br /><br />Is daylight savings really saving money? compare indiana/arizona to rest of states.<br /><br />Honor systems- how much do they work? ex. How much more money is made switching from honor system to ticketed turnstile system in a city for transportation<br /><br />Trying to get more specific.<br /><br />GENTRIFICATION<br />---------------<br />What caused the gentrification of Williamsburg, NYC and how is it affecting the rents and livelihood of its previously latino population?<br /><br />To do this question I would need: housing data, rent prices broken down by race for nyc, evidence to show a trend for why people started to move there and test the trend<br /><br />MICROFINANCE<br />--------------<br />In a specific case study did the microfinance program lead to more financial independence among participants than regular welfare. <br /><br />To this question I would need: well kept and unbiased data from a microfinance program, well kept and unbiased data froma welfare program in the exact region and hopefully population. Indicators of financial independence: owning a business,paying back loans, making large investments in purchases, owning one's mode of housing<br /><br />HEALTH ECON<br />---------------<br />Did sugar subsidies and tarriffs lead to an inrease in the use of HFCS and is there any correlation between HFCS use and type 2 Diabetes incline<br /><br />To do this question I need: sugar subsidy and tarrif data, HFCS use data, type 2 diabetes data urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:761 2006-07-27T07:38:24Z 2006-07-27T07:38:24Z "Many of you have provided research questions for Honors in Economics 498 but not all. We need to reduce the honors load for faculty and lack of initiative now is a clear signal."<br /><br />Okay, where can I get some focus?!? Okay, but anyway I think I'm okay for right now but I have to have a question soon. So I need to throw myself into this. Right now this phrase Prof Sened told me is running through my head...<br /><br />"all equilibria are local"- what does that mean? local solutions for problems...there's not one overarching world scheme that is going to work for everything and every country<br /><br />So...<br /><br />Thanks to Shenbaby's comment I'm going to look into my microfinance and gentrification ideas a little more. Yeah, exactly like that dvd/vhs example Shenbaby for status quo topic. I don't know though how easy it would be to untie all the variables that might affect technology adoption.<br /><br />MICROFINANCE- Still need to talk to Dr. Kiefer about her study there. But what questions can I ask? I read a paper about how it must be locally integrated like in certain African countries it's normal for a man to provide a service for saving and lending where he literally goes door to door with a can taking collections every week. Or there are sort of shared risk pools of money which are interesting. What could I test specifically though that hasnt been done before...?<br /><br />I really haven't done anything about gentrification so I'll do that tomorrow.<br /><br />I found some things on sugar subsidies/hfcs. There's definitely and inefficiency going on with subsidizing sugar when its not needed anymore, but the effects of eliminating the sugar would raise the world price of it. So why the HFCS substitution?<br /><br />hmm urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:priskool:473 2006-07-26T01:18:27Z 2006-07-26T01:18:27Z I've decided to start a journal about my thesis for a few reasons. I think it'll help me focus and actually be thinking about what I've done for the day. Also, I've found that the more I talk about it with people the easier it is to figure out what I really think. And lastly, if I force myself to write regularly I will force myself to do something each day. That's the hope anyway!<br /><br />So here we go...<br /><br />I am a writing a senior honors thesis for economics. It has to be an original study so for those of you who aren't econ-y or have been spared from my constantly worrying and complaining thus far that basically means you are doing a sort of experiment. Think science fair but with out the science and with other variables like money, interest rates, sales ect. So basically the idea is you come up with a question like after event x did variable y increase/decrease whatever, and then you do some statistical junk to figure it out. There are obviously variations on this but thats what it boils down to.<br /><br />I am researching in part for the Center for New Institutional Social Sciences (www.cniss.wustl.edu). I want to do my thesis on something having to do with developing countries and their economies and institutions but it's hard to find data on that sort of thing. Here are some ideas so far...<br /><a name="cutid1"></a><br />*I've kind of given up on my aid agency idea after being discouraged about the possibility of finding unbiased data. I think it'd be better to actually be able to generate your own survey data from the country which is a little impossible right now.<br /><br />*I'm intrigued lately by the idea of doing something with the environmental externalities. Specifically how they relate to developing countries which often don't value as highly environmental concerns. Maybe the valuations are off? (externalities: the unrelated effects of an action or decision which also have a cost or value to society that must be accounted for, i.e. negative externality: pollution from factory production, positive externality: happiness from stranger's good smelling perfume)<br /><br />*Microfinance programs in general and whether they are successful. Basically these program s give small loans or allow for savings in developing countries and lead to a lot of good things I think. They are also hard to evaluate and test though because of the bias data problem. I think Dr. Kiefer did original research with an African tribe of women and a microfinance project though so I should talk to her.<br /><br />*The status quo and why people like to stick to it and how to get people to move away from it. What makes people adopt new technologies when old ones already exist? How does it differ in developing countries? The status quo can inhibit growth and reform so its important to developing countries too.<br /><br />*Because I was just in NYC: gentrification and urban development- how do some areas become the new place to be? how does it affect rents and existing residents? does it increase homelessness and affect poverty rates?<br /><br />*Because of Sara's dad: health economics- so many questions here. Does introducing something to the PPS (prospective payment system in medicare/medicaid payments) increase certain prescriptions? Is there a relation among sugar subsidies, the advent of the use of HFSC (high fructose corn syrup), obsesity, and type II diabetes. I.e. sugar subsidies -&gt; high price for sugar -&gt; HFCS usage skyrockets- &gt; obsesity rises -&gt; type II diabetes rises? Even just the relationship between HFCS and sugar subsidies. Cross country comparison is possible w/ Europe which doesn't use HFCS. Or smaller more manageable question of whether programs like eliminating pop machines in school has led to less obesity and diabetes but prob too early to tell.<br /><br /><br />whoever is kind enough to read this please comment and discuss it would help me out a lot.