Maureen A. Pirog

Evaluation of the education sector enhancement program in Barbados

ABSTRACT Drawing on the education production function literature, we examine the short-run impact of comprehensive education reforms in Barbados on primary school student outcomes. Using a variety of specifications to test the robustness of our results, we find modest and mixed changes in student test scores. Our findings are discussed in the context of management challenges that resulted from the need to coordinate a multi-faceted project in a rapidly developing nation; alignment of goals and schedules of two multi-national development banks, the Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports (MES), and the Government of Barbados; and, a very rapidly changing information technology environment that led, in part, to changes in planned capital improvements in schools, equipment needs, and had implications for teacher training.

Do public pensions crowd out private transfers to the elderly?: evidence from South Korea

We investigate the impact of receiving a public pension on total expenditures, food expenditures, and private transfers of the elderly in South Korea. Using a natural experiment that occurred in 1999, we are able to explore the impacts of a large public pension program expansion which newly incorporated people who had been self-employed, unemployed, and out of the labor force. We find that receipt of a public pension did not allow the elderly to increase total expenditures or food expenditures because the expansion of public pensions largely crowded out financial transfers from adult children and/or own siblings.