Fixed Effects Approach Research Articles

Homeowner and Renter Payment for School Quality in Beijing: Boundary Fixed Effect Analysis with Housing Price–Rent Comparison

The commonly used traditional hedonic price model is likely to be biased in exploring residents' willingness to pay for school quality because of unobservable characteristics. To circumvent this issue, using city-level and district-level key primary school attendance zones data and average home value data of communities in Beijing in December 2016, we employ paired difference regression using a boundary fixed effect approach to explore the capitalization of school quality, with 750 m as the threshold distance within community pairs and 500 and 1,000 m for robustness checks. The results indicate that housing prices respond significantly to both city-level and district-level school qualities in Beijing, with premiums of 17.2% and 8.37%, respectively. However, we find no premium for housing rent. Homeowners show concern over good school quality and are willing to pay more for higher school quality, while renters will not pay for it. This study further suggests that the traditional hedonic price model has overestimated the capitalization of school quality in housing. The estimation results from the boundary fixed effect approach are more robust and reliable. Based on these findings, urban policy recommendations and action plans are proposed.

Arsenic concentrations in the placenta are associated with dysregulation of placental microRNA expression

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Normal placental function is essential for successful pregnancy outcomes and programming lifelong health. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are epigenetic post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression that participate in critical processes during early development, including embryogenesis, implantation and placentation. Placental function and placental miRNA expression are both susceptible to environmentally-induced dysregulation. Gestational exposure to arsenic is associated with adverse birth weight outcomes in newborns, as well as increased risk of chronic disease in the long-term. We hypothesize that prenatal exposure to arsenic can alter the expression of placental miRNAs which may in turn impact newborn health. METHODS: This study used data from 272 mother-infant pairs from the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study (NHBCS) and 149 from the Rhode Island Child Health Study (RICHS). Placental arsenic concentrations were determined by ICP-MS, and small RNA sequencing determined the abundance of all miRNAs expressed in the placenta. We used negative binominal generalized linear models, fit separately to each cohort, to identify miRNAs that are associate with placental arsenic concentrations. We then aggregated cohort-level results using an inverse variance weighted fixed-effects meta-analysis approach. RESULTS:We identified that a doubling of placental arsenic concentration was associated with a 0.19-fold-increase in the expression of miRNAs 509-3p and 514a-5p (FDR 0.1). Using bioinformatic miRNA target prediction, followed by pathway analysis, we found that mRNAs targeted by these two miRNAs participate in various biochemical pathways critical for cell-to-cell adhesion, systemic blood pressure maintenance and various nervous system processes (q0.1). CONCLUSIONS:Arsenic may disrupt miRNA expression in the placenta, leading to dysregulation of the placenta’s transcriptional landscape, which in turn could contribute to the developmental programming of chronic disease risk. Future work aims to identify associations between early life health outcomes and differential expression of arsenic-sensitive placental miRNAs. KEYWORDS: Arsenic, microRNA, Epigenetics, Placenta, Sequencing

Trade Openness and Economic Growth: A Study on Asean-6

This paper focuses on examining the nonlinear impact of trade openness (TO) on economic growth (EG) in the Asean-6 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, and Vietnam). In order to achieve the set research objectives, the authors estimate the research model through the fixed-effect panel threshold approach. Unlike previous studies, this paper finds that there is a nonlinear impact of TO on EG, whereby TO has two threshold values. Specifically, before the first threshold value, TO plays an important role in boosting EG. However, this impact level decreases gradually when TO exceeds this threshold value. In particular, when exceeding the second threshold value, the impact of TO on EG is still positive but has a relatively low value. The research results show that if TO increases to a high level (beyond the threshold value) without combining with other complementary policies, this does not encourage high-efficiency EG. In addition, this study also shows that EG is positively affected by domestic investment and negatively affected by financial crisis. The findings in this paper are of great importance for the Asean-6 countries as well as researchers.

Occupational Inflexibility and Women's Employment During the Transition to Parenthood.

The typical U.S. workplace has adapted little to changes in the family and remains bound to norms of a workweek of 40 or more hours. How jobs are structured and remunerated within occupations shapes gender inequality in the labor market, and this may be particularly true at the critical juncture of parenthood. This study provides novel evidence showing how the inflexibility of occupational work hours shapes new mothers' employment. We use a fixed-effects approach and individual-level data from nationally representative panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (N = 2,239 women) merged with occupational characteristics from the American Community Survey. We find that women in pre-birth occupations with higher shares working 40 or more hours per week and higher wage premiums to longer work hours are significantly less likely to be employed post-birth. These associations are small in magnitude and not statistically significant for men, and placebo regressions with childless women show no associations between occupational inflexibility and subsequent employment. Results illustrate how individual employment decisions are jointly constrained by the structure of the labor market and persistent gendered cultural norms about breadwinning and caregiving.

Depressive symptoms and perception of risk during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: A web-based cross-country comparative survey.

Evidence is accumulating of the negative impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic and related public health measures on mental health. In this emergent field, there has been little research into the role of risk perception on depressive symptoms and the contribution of health‐care resources to model risk perception and mental health. The aim of this paper is to describe the relationship between individual‐level perception of risk and depression, controlling for a set of confounders and for country‐level heterogeneity. A cross‐sectional and observational online survey was conducted using a non‐probability snowball sampling technique. We use data on 11,340 respondents, living in six European countries (Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom, France, Poland, Czech Republic) who completed survey questionnaires during the first months of the pandemic. We used a fixed‐effect approach, which included individual and macro‐level variables. The findings suggest that a high proportion of people suffering from depression and heightened risk perception is positively associated with reporting depressive symptoms, even if this relationship varies significantly between countries. Moreover, the association is moderated by contextual factors including health‐care expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, hospital beds for acute care, and number of medical specialists per head of population. Investment in health care offers a concrete means of protecting the mental health of a population living under pandemic restrictions.

Moderation of Financial Constraints in Transfer Pricing Aggressiveness, Income Smoothing, and Managerial Ability to Avoid Taxation

This study examines the effect of transfer pricing aggressiveness, income smoothing, and managerial ability in tax avoidance with financial constraints as a moderating variable. The samples were manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2015 to 2018. The study analyzed a form of panel data with a fixed-effect model approach. The result was transfer pricing aggressiveness and income smoothing had positives effects on tax avoidance. Managerial ability reduces tax avoidance, while financial constraints did not. Furthermore, financial constraints did not moderate the effects of transfer pricing aggressiveness on tax avoidance. Financial constraints strengthened the positive effects of income smoothing and the negative effects of managerial ability on tax avoidance. This study provides input to the tax authorities in formulating policies, as well as input for risk analysis on tax potential.
 Keywords: transfer pricing aggressiveness, income smoothing, managerial ability, financial constraints, tax avoidance.

Revisiting the biomass energy-economic growth linkage of BRICS countries: A panel quantile regression with fixed effects approach

This study revisits the relationship between biomass energy and economic growth for the case of BRICS countries by adopting a newly introduced method: panel quantile regression with fixed effects via the method of moments. By applying this novel estimator based on the dataset from 1990 to 2017, our research provides a more detailed view of the heterogeneous impact of biomass energy production on different levels of economic growth of the BRICS countries. Specifically, our analysis results disclose that the influence of biomass energy production is insignificant at the 5th quantile, but it is positive and significant at the remaining quantiles. The impact of biomass energy extraction is also increasing gradually as quantile levels of economic growth increase. In addition to the above results, we also use the Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test to confirm the bidirectional causal nexus between economic growth and biomass energy. These results are the basis for us to make some policy recommendations for BRICS countries.

Improving Predictions When Interest Focuses on Extreme Random Effects

Statistical models that generate predicted random effects are widely used to evaluate the performance of and rank patients, physicians, hospitals and health plans from longitudinal and clustered data. Predicted random effects have been proven to outperform treating clusters as fixed effects (essentially a categorical predictor variable) and using standard regression models, on average. These predicted random effects are often used to identify extreme or outlying values, such as poorly performing hospitals or patients with rapid declines in their health. When interest focuses on the extremes rather than performance on average, there has been no systematic investigation of best approaches. We develop novel methods for prediction of extreme values, evaluate their performance, and illustrate their application using data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative to predict walking speed in older adults. The new methods substantially outperform standard random and fixed-effects approaches for extreme values.

A longitudinal study of convergence between Black and White COVID-19 mortality: A county fixed effects approach

BackgroundNon-Hispanic Black populations have suffered much greater per capita COVID-19 mortality than White populations. Previous work has shown that rates of Black and White mortality have converged over time. Understanding of COVID-19 disparities over time is complicated by geographic changes in prevalence, and some prior research has claimed that regional shifts in COVID-19 prevalence may explain the convergence. MethodsUsing county-level COVID-19 mortality data stratified by race, we investigate the trajectory of Black and White per capita mortality from June 2020–January 2021. We use a county fixed-effects model to estimate changes within counties, then extend our models to leverage county-level variation in prevalence to study the effects of prevalence versus time trajectories in mortality disparities. FindingsOver this period, cumulative mortality rose by 61% and 90% for Black and White populations respectively, decreasing the mortality ratio by 0.4 (25.8%). These trends persisted when a county-level fixed-effects model was applied. Results revealed that county-level changes in prevalence nearly fully explain changes in mortality disparities over time. InterpretationResults suggest mechanisms underpinning convergence in Black/White mortality are not driven by fixed county-level characteristics or changes in the regional dispersion of COVID-19, but instead by changes within counties. Further, declines in the Black/White mortality ratio over time appear primarily linked to county-level changes in COVID-19 prevalence rather than other county-level factors that may vary with time. Research into COVID-19 disparities should focus on mechanisms that operate within-counties and are consistent with a prevalence-disparity relationship. FundingThis work was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences [E.H.: UL1TR002553].

ANALISIS PENGEMBANGAN SEKTOR PARIWISATA KABUPATEN SUMBAWA

By utilizing exotic resources, making tourism places as known as the tourism sector in Sumbawa Regency that plays an important role in regional economic growth in Sumbawa Regency, not only playing a role in the economy but also the tourism sector as an additional source of income, both regional income and influential. on per capita income, this study aims to determine the strategy in seeking the development of the tourism sector of Sumbawa Regency, hotel tax, restaurant tax, entertainment tax, number of tourist visits, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Tourism Sector Manpower as independent variables. how is the development of Sumbawa district in the tourism sector, where the tourism sector is in the form of tourism sector income (the contribution of the tourism sector) as the dependent variable with the 2015-2019 research period. The research analysis uses panel data analysis with the Fixed-Effects (FE) approach. The estimation results show that hotel taxes, the number of tourist visits, MSMEs, and workers receive H0, which has increased and has a positive and significant influence on Sumbawa Regency in the tourism sector.

Linking racism and homonegativity to healthcare system distrust among young men of color who have sex with men: Evidence from the Healthy Young Men's (HYM) study

BackgroundExperiences with racism predict healthcare system distrust among people of color, but Black and Latino young men who have sex with men (YMSM) also experience overlapping forms of stigma associated with their sexual identities and behaviors (i.e., homonegativity and internalized homonegativity). These forms of minority stress may drive healthcare system distrust among Black and Latino YMSM but have received far less attention. ObjectivesTo examine the associations of racism, homonegativity, and internalized homonegativity with healthcare system distrust among a community sample of Black and Latino YMSM. MethodsData came from waves 2–4 (years 2017–2018) of the Healthy Young Men's study, a longitudinal cohort study of Black and Latino YMSM living in Los Angeles County. Data across waves (n = 424, nobs = 1272) were combined and analyzed using a fixed effects approach and adjusting for repeated measures across participants. A series of regression models that added sets of covariates (demographics, syndemic indicators, and health-related factors) were tested to examine associations of racism, homonegativity, and internalized homonegativity with healthcare system distrust. ResultsAdjusting for demographics and syndemic indicators, racism, but not homonegativity or internalized homonegativity, was associated with healthcare system distrust. Adjustment for health-related factors had little impact on results. ConclusionsAmong Black and Latino YMSM, greater exposure to racism is associated with greater healthcare system distrust. Efforts to strengthen healthcare system trust should explicitly target the institutional policies that disproportionately harm people of color.

Does the longitudinal association between neighbourhood cohesion and mental health differ by ethnicity? Results from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey.

While the association between neighbourhood cohesion and mental health has been widely studied in the general population, the effects of neighbourhood cohesion across ethnic groups are not well understood. Ethnicity is often left out of study design, many studies do not consider effect modification by ethnicity, or they rely on overly simplistic ethnic categories. Data from the UK household longitudinal study were used to investigate whether changes in neighbourhood cohesion are independently associated with changes in mental health (measured using the GHQ) over 9years (2009-2018), and whether the association differed across 17 ethnic groups. The study used a fixed-effect modeling approach that includes within-person estimators that allow each participant to act as their own control. Compared to British White, the following ethnic groups all saw a similar improvement in GHQ (- 0.76, 95% CI - 0.83 to - 0.70) for each point increase in neighbourhood cohesion: Irish, any other White, White and Asian mixed, Chinese, Caribbean, African, any other Black, Arab, and others. Some ethnic groups saw stronger improvements in mental for each point increase in neighbourhood cohesion, including White and Black Caribbean mixed, any other mixed, Indian, Pakistani, any other Asian, with the strongest effect seen in Bangladeshi participants (- 2.52. 95% CI - 3.48 to - 1.56). Our study highlights the importance of ethnocultural data in research examining neighbourhood effects on mental health. Future research should evaluate policies to improve neighbourhood cohesion for ethnic minorities to address ethnic mental health disparities.

Tax Aggressiveness in Manufacturing Companies in Indonesia

This study aims to analyze the factors that influence tax aggressiveness in manufacturing companies in Indonesia. This study uses a multiple linear regression approach using panel data. Data obtained from the financial statements of manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during 2015-2018 period. Sampling in this study was conducted by purposive sampling. The results of the study with the fixed effect approach show that the profitability variable has a significant effect on tax aggressiveness, while earnings management, leverage, and cash before the tax ratio have no effect.

The Influence of Corporate Governance on the Relationship between Related Party Transactions and Audit Fees

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of corporate governance mechanisms on the relationship between related party transactions and audit fees. In this study, board size and duality role of CEO were selected as corporate governance mechanisms and their effect on the relationship between related party transactions and audit fees among 93 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange in the 10-year period of 2011-2020 were investigated. For this purpose, three hypotheses were formulated to investigate this issue and research regression models were tested using the panel data method with the fixed effects approach. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between related party transactions and audit fees. The results also indicate that corporate governance mechanisms (board size, CEO duality) have a negative and significant effect on the relationship between related party transactions and audit fees. In fact, the results indicate that auditors are increasing their audit efforts (reflecting audit fees) to address the risk associated with related party transactions. It also minimizes conflicts of interest, opportunistic behaviors of managers and, consequently, the risk associated with related party transactions by applying appropriate regulatory mechanisms.

Examining the Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Net Crop Income in the Ethiopian Nile Basin: A Ricardian Fixed Effect Approach

Climate change affects crop production by distorting the indestructible productive power of the land. The objective of this study is to examine the economic impacts of climate change on net crop income in Nile Basin Ethiopia using a Ricardian fixed effect approach employing the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) household survey data for Ethiopia in 2015 and 2016. The survey samples were obtained through a three-stage stratified sampling technique from the five regions (Amhara, Tigray, Benishangul Gumuz, Oromia, and Southern Nation Nationality and People (SNNP) along the Nile basin Ethiopia. There are only 12–14% female household heads while there are 80–86% male households in the regions under study. In the regions, more than half of (64%) the household heads are illiterate and almost only one-tenth of them (12%) had received remittance from abroad from their relatives or children. Crop variety adoption rate is minimal, adopted by the 31% of farmers. Only 30% of the surveyed farmers mentioned that they planted their crop seeds in row whereas the rest 70% had not applied this method. The regression results from the fixed effect least square dummy variable model showed that literacy, household size, remittance, asset value, and total land holdings have significant and positive impacts on the net crop income per hectare. The regional dummy variables estimate indicated that all the regions are negatively affected by climate change at varying levels. Strategies to climate change adaptation have significant and positive contributions in leveraging the damaging effects of climate change. The results also showed that increased winter and summer temperature and rainfall increase net crop income per hectare. The estimated coefficient of the interaction term of spring temperature and rainfall is significant and negative. On the other hand, while the mean annual temperature is damaging to crops, annual rainfall is beneficial. It can be deduced that, while increased temperature and rainfall in summer and winter increase the net crop income, the converse is true for winter and spring seasons. The study also proposes a specific, context-dependent, farm-level adaptation analysis of how farmers cope with the different climatic impacts of the Nile Basin and maintain the income levels that they have previously enjoyed.

Water resource quality effects on water treatment costs: An analysis for the Brazilian case

The cost effects of water resource quality on water treatment are critical factors for firms' performance. However, few economic studies incorporate water quality parameters into cost functions. This study's main contribution was to combine data on Brazilian water treatment companies and surface water monitoring stations to produce a unique panel data set from 2003 to 2017, and then estimate the effects of water quality on water treatment costs. Based on a panel model with fixed effect approach, our findings show that disturbances on turbidity have significant effects on optimal costs. On average, one-percent increase in turbidity increases the costs in 0.1162%. Therefore, the results indicate that water treatment companies have incentives to improve water resource quality in the long run, which should be considered by regulatory agencies to connect economic incentives and landscape protection.

Varying Profitability and Determinants of Gram Crop Using Cost of Cultivation Data: A Fixed Effect Approach

Varying Profitability and Determinants of Gram Crop Using Cost of Cultivation Data: A Fixed Effect Approach

The Modelling of Stock Price Based on Dividend Policy, Intellectual Capital, Sales Growth, and Capital Structure

This research was aimed to know the influences of dividend policy, intellectual capital, sales growth and capital structure on stock prices. The population in this study were all mining companies listed on the Indo-nesia Stock Exchange in 2015 – 2019. The number of research samples obtained was 38 companies with purposive sampling technique and the number of observations of research data obtained was 190. This study used the multiple linear regression method with a fixed effects approach model. The results show that dividend policy has no influence on stock prices, intellectual capital has no influence on stock prices, sales growth has no influence on stock prices, and capital structure has a negative and significant effect on stock prices. The results of this study can provide insight to the companies, so that it can more effectively manage its capital structure.

Personality, health behaviours and physical health in young adulthood

Objective Personality traits and health are strongly correlated, but unobserved family-level characteristics may confound this relationship. This study investigates whether associations between personality traits and physical health are spurious owing to unobserved family background. Design Participants were from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. This study employed sibling fixed-effect approach to account for unobserved family characteristics. Main outcome measures Main dependent variables were Framingham Risk Scores for 30-year full cardiovascular disease (CVD) and metabolic syndrome. Results Sibling fixed-effects models showed that conscientiousness is associated with reductions in CVD risk and metabolic syndrome, and that neuroticism is associated with an increase in both conditions. A higher extraversion score is positively associated with CVD risk. The adverse effect of extraversion on CVD risk is larger among females, and the protective effect of conscientiousness is larger among males. Moreover, while extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness are associated with health behaviours in somewhat distinct ways, the associations for agreeableness and openness are spurious owing to unobserved family background. Conclusion This study ruled out the concern that unobserved family background drives the personality-physical health link. Mechanisms linking personality to physical health may be gendered.

Does teaching to the test improve student learning?

A central concern surrounding test-based accountability is that teachers may narrow teaching practices to improve test performance on a curriculum-based specific knowledge test rather than student learning more broadly. Two of the most common teaching practices that “teach to the test” are providing test-specific classwork and increasing the frequency with which students take practice tests. Whether such teaching practices improve student learning—both in terms of learning the content associated with a specific knowledge test as well as more general learning—is a largely unanswered question. To approach this question, this paper uses a student fixed effects approach to analyze the impact of these kinds of narrow teaching practices on student performance on a specific test as well as a general knowledge test. We find that test-specific classwork and practice tests with specific test items tend to have little or negative impacts on curriculum specific or general knowledge test performance, except for male students, and that subject practice tests (without emphasizing test-specific items) have positive effects on student outcomes on both kinds of tests, but larger on the curriculum-specific than on the general test, and much larger on the curriculum-specific test for male students. We discuss the logic for these results and what they tell us about the effectiveness of test-focused teaching practices more generally.