Arthur Sweetman

Microcredit: What Can We Learn from the Past?

We compare six microcredit organizations of nineteenth-century Europe (credit cooperatives and loan funds) to identify what characteristics were related with successful attainment of the organizations goals. We find that organizations that depended on charity or government for their funding tended not to be sustainable. In contrast, those organizations which relied on depositors for their funding operated at a larger scale and lasted much longer. An examination of the characteristics of these historical institutions is useful because some of them operated over many decades, providing a perspective which is rarely seen in modern, short-lived microcredit banks and programs.

First and Second Generation Immigrant Educational Attainment and Labor Market Outcomes: A Comparison of the United States and Canada

The educational and labor market outcomes of the first, first-and-a-half (1.5), second, and third generations of immigrants to the United States (US) and Canada are compared. These countries’ immigration policies have diverged on important dimensions since the 1960s, resulting in large differences in immigrant source country distributions and a much larger emphasis on skill requirements in Canada, making for interesting comparisons. Of particular note is the educational attainment of US immigrants which is currently lower than that in Canada and is expected to influence future second generations causing an existing education gap to grow. This will likely in turn influence earnings where, controlling only for age, the current US second generation has earnings comparable to those of the third generation, whereas the Canadian second generation has higher earnings. Importantly, the role of, and returns to, observable characteristics are significantly different between the US and Canada. Observable characteristics explain little of the difference in earnings outcomes across generations in the US but have remarkable explanatory power in Canada. Controlling for a wide array of characteristics, especially education, has little effect on the US second generations earnings premium, but causes the Canadian premium to become negative relative to the Canadian third generation. The Canadian 1.5 and second generations’ educational advantage is of benefit in the labor market, but does not receive the same rate of return as it does for the third generation causing a very sizable gap between the current good observed outcomes, and the even better outcomes that would be expected if the 1.5 and second generation received the same rate of return to their characteristics as the third generation. Why the US differs likely follows from a combination of its lower immigration rate, its different selection mechanism, and its settlement policies and practices.

Education and Ethnicity in Canada: An Intergenerational Perspective

Ethnic and intergenerational aspects of human capital investment are explored. Levels of, and (cross-sectional) returns to, education across ethnic groups in Canada are estimated and large differences observed. For men, a positive correlation exists between ethnic group average years of education and its return. We also find large negative correlations between ethnic group average educational outcomes and the previous generations fertility, suggesting a role for home production as a complement to formal education and supporting models of child quantity-quality trade-offs. Very slow intergenerational convergence in ethnic group level educational and labor market outcomes is also observed.

The life-cycle of a microfinance institution: the Irish loan funds

Abstract Ireland’s loan funds were a long-lived, self-sustaining, large-scale microfinance organization that made millions of loans, without collateral, to the poor. During the first 100 years of their life-cycle, a period of growth ending in the 1840s, they adapted constantly and obtained improvements to their legal structure because they were complementary to the banking system and seen as effective in relieving poverty. In their 2nd century, they became ossified, in part because of competition with commercial banks. The loan funds provide an example of sustainable microfinance under harsh economic conditions and illustrate how organizations change incrementally and, when successful, alter their institutional framework.

Unemployment Insurance and Quits in Canada

In two recent policy changes, the Canadian government acted to limit the eligibility of job quitters and those dismissed for cause for unemployment insurance (UI). The authors study the effects of these policy changes on separation behavior. They find no evidence that these policy changes induced a relabeling of separations towards UI eligible reasons, but the authors do find quite different responses across demographic groups. Women and young men are inhibited from quitting their jobs by the new quit penalties, but prime-age males seem unaffected by the large increase in the cost of quitting imposed by the changes.

The Impact of Placing Adolescent Males into Foster Care on Education, Income Assistance, and Convictions

Understanding the causal impacts of taking atrisk youth into government care is part of the evidence base for policy. Two sources of exogenous variation affecting alternative subsets of the atrisk population provide causal impacts interpreted as local average treatment effects. Placing 16 to18yearold males into care decreases or delays high school graduation, increases income assistance receipt, and has alternative effects on criminal convictions depending upon the instrument employed. This suggests that asking whether more or fewer children should be taken into care is insufficient; it also matters which, and how, children are taken into care.

Immigration: What About the Children and Grandchildren?

Intergenerational immigrant integration is central to the economic growth and social development of many countries whose populations comprise a substantial share of the children and grandchildren of immigrants. In addition to basic demographics, relevant economic theories and institutional features are surveyed to assist in understanding these phenomena. Building on this foundation, educational and labor market success across the immigrant generations are reviewed, and then studies on the evolution of social outcomes across those same generations are discussed. Overall, substantial cross-national heterogeneity in outcomes is observed as various sources of immigration interact with distinct national labor markets and educational/social contexts that have diverse approaches to integrating immigrants.

Rates of inappropriate laboratory test utilization in Ontario

BACKGROUND Medical laboratory tests ordered redundantly represent one of the targets for reducing diagnostic testing without negatively, and possibly positively, affecting patient care. We study a clearly defined category of excessive laboratory utilization for nine analytes where inappropriate diagnostic testing is defined in terms of the time interval between tests; that is, ordering a test too soon following the previous order of the same test. METHODS Population data from the near universal public Ontario Health Insurance Plan for the years 2006-2010 are employed where the tests are fulfilled by community medical laboratories. The analytes selected for consideration are thyroid stimulating hormone, hemoglobin A1c, lipid profile, serum protein electrophoresis, immunofixation, quantitative immunoglobulins, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, and folate. RESULTS For the nine analytes studied, the percentage of inappropriate tests ranged from 6% to 20%. Large proportions of these inappropriate tests were completed >2weeks prior to the minimum threshold to reorder defined by practice guidelines and/or were repeated excessively within a year. Between 60% and 85% of the time, the ordering physician of an inappropriate test was the same physician who ordered the previous test. Specialists were more likely than primary care physicians to order repeat tests too soon. CONCLUSIONS A sizeable proportion of testing for these analytes was inappropriate according to practice guidelines. It is recommended that systems for preventing unnecessary repeat testing are investigated by the funding agencies and that reducing inappropriate testing be considered as a design element for electronic medical records and related information technology systems.

Mandatory universal drug plan, access to health care and health: Evidence from Canada

This paper examines the impacts of a mandatory, universal prescription drug insurance program on health care utilization and health outcomes in a public health care system with free physician and hospital services. Using the Canadian National Population Health Survey from 1994 to 2003 and implementing a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, we find that the mandatory program substantially increased drug coverage among the general population. The program also increased medication use and general practitioner visits but had little effect on specialist visits and hospitalization. Findings from quantile regressions suggest that there was a large improvement in the health status of less healthy individuals. Further analysis by pre-policy drug insurance status and the presence of chronic conditions reveals a marked increase in the probability of taking medication and visiting a general practitioner among the previously uninsured and those with a chronic condition.

Ontario primary care models: a descriptive study

BACKGROUND Between 2001 and 2006, the Ontario government introduced a menu of new primary care models, with elements such as patient enrolment and minimum group sizes, and various combinations of fee-for-service, capitation, pay-for-performance and salary. From the statistical perspective of physicians, as opposed to patients, we looked at the distribution of physician characteristics, group size and patient visit patterns across models to describe primary care practice in Ontario. METHODS Using administrative data for fiscal year 2010/11 containing information on physician characteristics, patient rostering status, patient visits and other practice information, we described similarities and differences across primary care models. RESULTS Our sample included 11 626 family physicians. Compared with physicians in the new primary care models, physicians in fee-for-service models are much more likely to work part-time and many, particularly younger and female physicians, do not work in full-year full-scope practices. Among the new primary care models, physicians in capitated models are slightly younger, are less likely to be an international medical graduate, work in smaller physician teams and do not practice in urban areas. On average, physicians saw and rostered 1888 patients. Although there is still substantial variation within each model, fee-for-service physicians saw the fewest patients; physicians in capitated models saw somewhat more, and those in the noncapitated models saw the most patients. INTERPRETATION Practice and physician characteristics vary systematically across models. A high percentage of rostered patients see physicians outside the group with which they are rostered. Group-based primary care models may not have a large impact on group integration and continuity in the provision of primary care services.