Hyuncheol Bryant Kim

The role of education interventions in improving economic rationality

Educating for economic rationality The hypothesis that education enhances economic decision-making has been surprisingly underexplored. Kim et al. studied this question using a randomized control trial in a sample of 2812 girls in secondary schools in Malawi. Four years after providing financial support for a years schooling, they presented the subjects with a set of decision problems (for example, allocating funds to immediate versus future expenses) that test economic rationality. The education intervention enhanced both educational outcomes and economic rationality as measured by consistency with utility maximization in the long run. Science, this issue p. 83 An experiment with secondary school students shows that education enhances economic rationality measured with decision problems. Schooling rewards people with labor market returns and nonpecuniary benefits in other realms of life. However, there is no experimental evidence showing that education interventions improve individual economic rationality. We examine this hypothesis by studying a randomized 1-year financial support program for education in Malawi that reduced absence and dropout rates and increased scores on a qualification exam of female secondary school students. We measure economic rationality 4 years after the intervention by using lab-in-the-field experiments to create scores of consistency with utility maximization that are derived from revealed preference theory. We find that students assigned to the intervention had higher scores of rationality. The results remain robust after controlling for changes in cognitive and noncognitive skills. Our results suggest that education enhances the quality of economic decision-making.

When public health intervention is not successful: Cost sharing, crowd-out, and selection in Korea's National Cancer Screening Program ☆

This study investigates the impact of and behavioral responses to cost sharing in Koreas National Cancer Screening Program, which provides free stomach and breast cancer screenings to those with an income below a certain cutoff. Free cancer screening substantially increases the screening take up rate, yielding more cancer detections. However, the increase in cancer detection is quickly crowded out by cancer detection through other channels such as diagnostic testing and private cancer screening. Further, compliers are much less likely to have cancer than never takers. Crowd-out and selection help explain why the program has been unable to reduce cancer mortality.

Promotion and Persistence of HIV Testing and HIV/AIDS Knowledge: Evidence From a Randomized Controlled Trial in Ethiopia.

We use data from a randomized controlled trial in Ethiopia and examine the causal effects of HIV/AIDS education, home-based voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT), and conditional cash transfers (CCT) for facility-based VCT on HIV/AIDS knowledge and demand for HIV testing. HIV/AIDS education significantly increases HIV/AIDS knowledge but has a limited effect on testing take-up. However, when HIV/AIDS education is combined with either home-based VCT or CCT for facility-based VCT, take-up increases substantially by about 63 and 57 percentage points, respectively. We also demonstrate evidence of persistence in test-taking behavior, where past HIV testing does not dampen demand for testing. Lastly, we find suggestive evidence that home-based VCT could be more effective at detecting HIV-positive cases relative to CCT for facility-based VCT. Our findings highlight the importance of geographic accessibility in the testing decision and persistence in demand for HIV testing. Copyright