I examine the impact of a health insurance program for the poor implemented in Indonesia in 2005 on labor supply and informal work measured by employment status outside of the private and public formal sector. As a first step to its ambitious plan for universal coverage, this program extended subsidized health insurance coverage to a large proportion of Indonesia’s poor and near-poor population. Using a rich longitudinal survey, I estimate the average treatment effect on the treated using a combined propensity score matching method with difference in differences. The richness of the data allows me to control for a set of observable characteristics used by the government to allocate the benefit as well as an extensive combination of controls at the individual, household and community level. I find a significant negative impact on labor supply. This impact is driven by women, both at the intensive and extensive margin of labor supply. These results are in line with the fact that individuals with higher value for health insurance are more inclined to modify their labor market behavior. This decrease in labor supply has important policy implications as it may cause a negative impact on economic development, poverty and socioeconomic status of women. The results are not suggestive of an impact on informality. This lack of an effect on informal status is encouraging for developing countries in the verge of implementing universal care reform.

This note proposes the continuous treatment approach as a valuable alternative to propensity score matching for evaluating economic effects of merger and acquisitions (M&As). This framework allows considering the variation in treatment intensities explicitly, and it does not call for an arbitrary definition of cutoff values in traded ownership shares to construct a binary treatment indicator. We demonstrate the usefulness of this approach using data from European M&As and by relying on the example of post-M&A employment effects. The empirical exercise reveals some heterogeneities over the whole distribution of acquired ownership shares and across different types of M&As and country groups.

Background: Current cesarean delivery (CD) rates in many industrialized countries are well above the recommended rates. Objective: The overall goal of this thesis was to identify sources for unnecessary CD. Specific objectives were to: 1) analyze the leading indications for CD and their associations with neonatal outcomes; 2) compare adverse birth outcomes between elective primary cesarean delivery (EPCD) and trial of labor after vaginal birth (TOLAV), and between elective repeat cesarean delivery (ERCD) and trial of labor after cesarean birth (TOLAC); and 3) assess the cost-effectiveness of ERCD and TOLAC. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted. Leading indications for CD were analyzed and risks of neonatal outcomes between “soft” indications and “hard” indications were compared first, using 2006 to 2013 Better Outcomes and Registry Network Ontario data. A pair of analyses: comparing risks of adverse birth outcomes between EPCD and TOLAV and between ERCD and TOLAC, were then conducted using United States 2005 to 2010 birth registration data. Analysis were performed using logistic regression and propensity score matching models. Finally, a cost-effectiveness analysis between ERCD and TOLAC was performed. Results: The single largest contributor for overall CD was ERCD (34.3%) and for primary CD was dystocia (31.9%) in Ontario. Compared with infants of mothers with CD for “hard” indications, the risks of Apgar score <7 at 5 minutes for infants of mothers with CD for non-reassuring-fetal-status was increased, while the risks of Apgar score <7 at 5 minutes and neonatal death for infants of mothers with ERCD and dystocia were decreased. Compared with infants of mothers who underwent TOLAV, infants of mothers who underwent EPCD were more likely to require antibiotics and ventilation support, but less likely to have birth injury. On the other hand, compared with infants of mothers who underwent TOLAC, infants of mothers who underwent ERCD were less likely to require antibiotics and ventilation support. ERCD was similar to the TOLAC birth option in terms of cost effectiveness. Conclusions: Tight up criteria for “soft” indications such as labor dystocia could result in substantial reduction in CD without harming the infants.

Le score de propension s'est progressivement imposé comme l’une des méthodes de référence dans l'analyse des données observationnelles afin de prendre en compte le biais potentiel lié à l’existence de facteurs de confusion dans l'estimation de l'effet du traitement sur le critère de jugement. Parmi les recommandations de bonnes pratiques d'utilisation, le processus de sélection des variables à inclure dans le score final utilisé est essentiel, ainsi que l'évaluation de l'équilibre obtenu sur les covariables après appariement ou pondération sur ce score. Dans l'objectif de prioriser l'inclusion et l'équilibre des variables ayant une relation avec le critère de jugement une nouvelle mesure d'équilibre est proposée dans ce travail de thèse. Une première partie de ce travail a eu pour objectif de développer une mesure globale pondérée permettant d'évaluer l'équilibre global des covariables obtenu après appariement et ainsi d'aider à la sélection d’un modèle de propension le plus parcimonieux possible, en éliminant notamment les variables instrumentales. En effet ces variables ne doivent pas être introduites dans le modèle de score de propension au risque de majorer le biais final d'estimation. Lors des étapes d'évaluation de l'équilibre final obtenu, les différentes mesures d'équilibres disponibles ne prennent le plus souvent pas en compte cette information et concluent souvent à l'intérêt d'inclure une telle variable afin de réduire au maximum le déséquilibre entre les groupes. L'évaluation des performances de cette mesure a dans un premier temps fait appel à des simulations de type Monte Carlo. Dans une seconde partie, une mise en application sur des données réelles issues de la médecine d'urgence a permis de préciser la pratique d'utilisation d'une telle mesure / Propensity score (PS) methods have become increasingly used to analyze observational data and take into account confusion bias in final estimate of treatment effects. The goal of the PS is to balance the distribution of potential confounders across treatment groups. The performance of the PS strongly relies on variable selection in PS construction and balance assessment in PS analysis. Specifically, the choice of the variables to be included in the PS model is of paramount importance. In order to priorize inclusion and balance of variables related to the outcome, a new balance measure was proposed in this thesis. First, a new weighted balance measure was studied to help in construction of PS model and to obtain the most parsimonious model, by excluding instrumental variables known to be related with increasing bias in final treatment estimate. Several balances measures are proposed to assess final balance, but none of them help researchers to not include instrumental variables. We propose a new weighted balance measure that takes into account, for each covariate, its strength of association with the outcome. This measure was evaluated using a simulation study to assess whether minimization of the measure coincided with minimally biased estimates. Secondly, we propose to apply this measure to a real data set from an observational cohort study.

No description available.

The present study examines whether the presence of school resource officers (SROs) and their level of involvement in place management activities are associated with higher or lower rates of school-based serious violence. This study uses data from the 2010 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) conducted by National Center for Educational Statistics. Propensity score matching is used to create a quasi-experimental design and isolate the influence of SROs and their level of involvement in place management activities on school-based serious violence. The analysis reveals that schools with a school resource officer are associated with higher rates of reported serious violence and those schools with SROs that participate in more place manager duties are also associated with higher rates of reported serious violence. These findings do not support the notion that SROs are acting as effective place managers and through this place management, reducing reported serious violence. Rather, it appears that the presences of a SRO and their execution of place manager duties is associated with an increase in the reporting of serious violence. Policy implications and limitations of the current research are also discussed.

This thesis examines the environmental effect of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in the Czech Republic. Specifically, the impact of the EU ETS on CO2 emissions, carbon-fuel intensity and carbon intensity of production (measured by revenues) is analysed on installation-level financial, environmental and energy data throughout all three phases of the EU ETS over 2005 - 2019. The difference-in-differences approach with propensity score matching is used to infer the causal effect of the regulation. We find no effect of the EU ETS on carbon emissions and carbon intensities in the Czech Republic. This finding holds for various model specifications and different approaches we utilised. In the end, we discuss possible reasons why the EU ETS might not lead to any significant effect in the Czech Republic. JEL Classification O13, F18, Q54, Q58, H23, D22 Keywords EU ETS, environmental regulation, propen- sity score matching, difference-in-differences, the Czech Republic Title The impact of the EU ETS in the Czech Repub- lic

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No description available.

In this study, I examine the employment effects on average earnings and duration to work during a 45 month period, after receiving social assistance (SA) in October 2019, compared to receiving unemployment insurance (UI) the same month. A distinction is made between two treatment groups; receiving SA in addition to UI (treatment I) and receiving SA (treatment II). Using propensity score matching (PSM), I estimate the average treatment effects on the treated on earnings, as well as duration to work by using the Kaplan-Meier survival estimator with the matched observations. I use newly released Swedish administrative micro level data of individuals’ monthly labour market status (BAS) between 2020-2023, from Statistics Sweden. During this thesis process, where Statistics Sweden allowed me data access, I was allowed an additional year of data, for 2019. Results showed that the inflow of SA recipients in October 2019, on average had 25.5 percent lower earnings between November 2019-July 2023, compared to the inflow of UI recipients the same month. In addition, the inflow of SA recipients in October 2019, on average spent 4 months longer in unemployment, compared to those receiving UI the same month. However, results were insignificant when comparing effects between the inflow of those receiving SA in addition to UI in October 2019 with the inflow of UI recipients the same month. Results for this group were insignificant for both employment outcomes; average earnings and duration to work.