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Policy Research
Is Cost a Barrier to Screening Mammography for Low Income Women Receiving Medicare Benefits?
Catarina I. Kiefe, Siripoom V. McKay, Amir Halevy, Baruch A. Brody
June 1994
This randomized controlled trial tests the effectiveness of offering free mammography screening to low income patients (specifically, older women). Over one hundred Medicare patients were randomly assigned to a control group, and a treatment group who received vouchers for free mammograms. Results show that 44% of women who received vouchers obtained mammograms, compared to only 10% of women in the control group.
Does Free Care Improve Adults Health? Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial
Robert H. Brook, John E. Ware, William H. Rogers, Emmett B. Keeler, Allyson R. Davies, Cathy A. Donald, George A. Goldberg, Kathleen N. Lohr, Patricia C. Masthay, Joseph P. Newhouse
December 1983
A sample of 3,958 people were randomly assigned to two differing healthcare plans: one providing entirely free care, and the other involving cost-sharing. The results suggest that free care significantly benefited the health of poor patients in terms of eyesight, blood pressure, and overall mortality rate. They do not find a significant impact of free care on the rich.
Efficacy of a Theory Based Abstinence-Only Intervention Over 24 Months
John B. Jemmott III, Loretta S. Jemmott, Geoffrey T. Fong
June 2010
This randomized controlled trial tests the effectiveness of abstinence-only education among youth. Students were randomly assigned into a control group, a group receiving abstinence-only education, a group receiving safe-sex education, and a group receiving both types of education. Follow-ups were made 24 months after education. Abstinence-only education lowered the probability of having sexual intercourse in the 24-month period to 33.5%, compared to the control group 48.5%. The other two treatment groups had no significant effect. None of the interventions had significant effects on unprotected intercourse.
Teachers, Race, and Student Achievement in a Randomized Experiment
Thomas S. Dee
February 2004
This randomized experiment uses data from the Tennessee project STAR and tests the effect of minority students having a teacher from the same minority group. Results show that assignment to a class with an own-race teacher corresponded to a 4-5 percentile-point increase in math scores, and a 3-6 percentile-point increase in reading scores.
Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment
Willard G. Manning, Joseph P. Newhouse, Naihua Duan, Emmett B. Keeler, Arleen Leibowitz
June 1987
This randomized experiment explores the effect of cost-sharing on the demand of medical care. This study uses data from the Rand Health Insurance Experiment, where patients were randomly assigned to groups with different levels of coinsurance ranging from 0% to 95%. Results show that lower out-of-pocket expenses (i.e. lower co-insurance rate) lead to higher health expenses. Specifically, the 0% coinsurance group had expenses per capita 45% higher than the 95% co-insurance group. The biggest difference occurs between the 0% and 25% groups.
A Family Intervention to Delay Nursing Home Placement of Patients with Alzheimer Disease
Mary S. Mittelman, Steven H. Ferris, Emma Shulman, Gertrude Steinberg, Bruce Levin
December 1996
This experiment randomly assigned spousal caregivers (to spouses with Alzheimer’s) into a control and treatment group. The caregivers in the treatment group attended six counseling sessions that included support, techniques, and problem solving to aid in caring for a spouse with Alzheimer’s. Results show that caregivers receiving the counseling were only 2/3 as likely to place spouses in nursing-homes at any time compared to the control group. Further, patients in the treatment group spent an average of 329 more days at home than those in the control group.
Parent Child Information Frictions and Human Capital Investment: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Peter Bergman
June 2015
This experiment examines the effect of increased flows of information to parents on student success. A randomly assigned group of parents were given comprehensive information regarding their child’s academic achievement (grades 6-11). Results show that students in the treatment group experienced GPAs 0.23 points higher than in the control group. Further, students in the treatment group were more likely to turn in final exams and projects, and earned higher grades on them.
Using Behavioral Economics to Design More Effective Food Policies to Address Obesity
Peggy J. Liu, Jessica Wisdom, Christina A. Roberto, Linda J. Liu, Peter A. Ubel
October 2013
The article argues that informational policies implemented to help decrease obesity, such as display of caloric information on food packaging, are not as effective as they are intended to be and should be supplemented with policies that incorporate behavioral economic principles. Such policies may nudge consumers toward more healthy options while still maintaining freedom of choice.
Intergenerational conflict and the political economy of higher education funding
Eric J. Brunner, Erik B. Johnson
December 2015
This article looks at how a population’s age distribution and growing divide between the ethnic composition of older and younger generations is likely to affect support for higher education funding. The authors use survey data on voter preferences for higher education funding and precinct-level vote returns from locally funded community college bond referenda in California. They find that older voters are significantly less supportive of higher education funding than young voters and that support among older non-Hispanic white voters is particularly weak when those voters reside in a jurisdiction where the college-age population is more heavily Hispanic.
Cents and sensibility: A case study of corrections reform in Kansas and Michigan
Andres F. Rengifo, Don Stemen, Brendan D. Dooley, Ethan Amidon, Amanda Gendon
June 2010
This article examines the ongoing process of penal reform in the correctional systems of Kansas and Michigan and argues that the new framework has the potential to obscure the relationship between penal practices and their immediate institutional environment. This article shows the nature and scope of reforms in both states were determined not just by internal considerations but by a number of forces operating outside of the penal bureaucracy including economic crises, events, and the interests of external actors. The authors find that these outside forces both constrained and encouraged correctional reforms and led to evolving reform rationales that often conflicted with the practices of the new penology, which is said to reflect an emerging “managerial” perspective focused on the control of specific subpopulations and the regulation of risk through actuarial instruments and selective long-term control.