Ha-Il Jeong

This article examines the relationship between preschool quality and children’s early development in a sample of over 7900 children enrolled in 578 preschools in rural Indonesia. Quality was measured by: (1) classroom observations using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R); (2) teacher characteristics; and (3) structural characteristics of preschools. Children’s development was measured using the Early Development Instrument (EDI). The article proposes two methodologica

Despite a large body of literature on the effects of politicization, relatively little is known about its relationship with the work attitudes of public employees. This study investigates how different forms of politicization relate to senior executives’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Using data from a large-scale executive survey conducted in Europe, we found that senior public officials exhibit negative work attitudes when there is political intervention in civil service staff

Abstract The sharp rise in U.S. incarceration rates has heightened long‐standing concerns among scholars and policymakers that lengthy incarceration permanently harms the future labor market outcomes of prisoners. If true, then lengthy prison sentences will not only punish criminals for crimes committed, but will also make it far more difficult for ex‐prisoners to reenter society as productive citizens. To investigate this claim I examine how increase in duration of incarceration affects subsequ

Abstract 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 expen

This study assesses whether the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED) project had an impact on early achievement gaps as measured by an array of child development outcomes and enrolment. First, using a fixed-effects model with a difference-in-difference estimator that compares children in project villages with those in non-project villages, we find that the positive impacts are concentrated among poor children. Second, extending our fixed-effects model, we also find that the

This article examines the long-term impact of incarceration during the teens and 20s on labor market outcomes and its causal pathways via education and job experience. Using the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this article finds that incarceration in youth correctional institutions significantly reduces wages and the total number of weeks worked per year at age 39 or 40 while incarceration during the 20s only lowers wages. Further, this study finds that incarceration in youth correct

This study examines the impact of adult transition centers (ATCs) in Illinois on postimprisonment earnings and employment. As a work-release program, ATCs are designed to help state prisoners prepare for release through job training and employment opportunities. Using releases from minimum-security prisons as the comparison group, this study finds that ATC assignment modestly improves employment while successful ATC release positively affects earnings and employment. The possible selection bias

This paper assesses whether the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and Development project had an impact on early achievement gaps as measured by an array of child development outcomes and enrollment. The analysis is based on longitudinal data collected in 2009 and 2010 on approximately 3,000 four-year-old children residing in 310 villages located in nine districts across Indonesia. The study begins by documenting the intent-to-treat impact of the project. It then compares the achievement gaps

Social attitudes toward marriage and motherhood have shifted away from the traditional norms of universal marriage and childbearing. While the second demographic transition theory stresses the importance of education in bringing ideational changes behind low fertility and low marriage rates, a causal link between college education and attitudinal change has not been studied much. To fill this literature gap, this study demonstrates the enduring impact of college education on women’s family attit

This study estimates the impact of women’s college education on their fertility-related outcomes by taking advantage of a natural experiment known as the graduation quota program that massively expanded women’s opportunities to attend college in South Korea. After the 1979 military coup, the military regime in South Korea ordered all public and private colleges to expand their college admission levels by 30 per cent in 1981 and 50 per cent in 1982. This study implemented instrumental variable (I

Abstract Most evaluations are still quasi‐experimental and most recent quasi‐experimental methodological research has focused on various types of propensity score matching to minimize conventional selection bias on observables. Although these methods create better‐matched treatment and comparison groups on observables, the issue of selection on unobservables still looms large. Thus, in the absence of being able to run randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or natural experiments, it is important to