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Most countries implement safety net programs for poor households. A widespread concern is that such programs crowd out private-sector jobs, but they could also affect workers' job choice. This paper analyzes the first-year employment impacts of the world's largest public-works program, India's National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (NREGS), using a novel regression-discontinuity design. It focuses on districts treated in phase 2 of the NREGS rollout, which excludes poorer districts that were already treated. The results show that there is little evidence of a crowding out of private-sector jobs. Instead, male workers move from work for pay to family employment, which is driven by smallholder farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EdTech, which includes computer-assisted learning (CAL), online education, and remote instruction, was expanding rapidly even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies of CAL interventions often find positive effects; however, these "CAL programs" often include non-technology-based inputs such as more time spent on learning and additional instructional support by facilitators. In this paper, we discuss the possible channels by which CAL programs affect academic outcomes among schoolchildren. We isolate the technology-based effects of CAL from the total program effects by designing and performing a novel multitreatment field experiment in rural China. For the full sample, we find null effects for both the total CAL program and the technology-based effects of CAL on math test scores. For boys, however, we find a positive and statistically significant effect of the CAL program but do not find evidence of a positive effect for the technology-based effect of CAL. When focusing on grades, we find evidence of positive CAL program effects but find null effects when we isolate the technology-based effects of CAL. Our empirical results suggest that the "Tech" in EdTech may have relatively small additional effects on academic outcomes, yet tech programs can substitute at least to a certain extent for traditional learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The report is a summary of the History of Science Society Annual Meeting in 2023, which focused on the theme of "Shifting Standards, Creating Change." The meeting explored social justice work in response to global humanitarian crises and the Black Lives Matter movement. It featured panels and papers on topics such as the history of science, restorative projects, and diversity in the field. The report also highlights the winners of the HSS Prizes for 2023, which recognized outstanding contributions to the history of science. The award-winning books and essays cover a range of topics, including early modern European thought on extinction, the use of fish to combat malaria in colonial India, nonbinary gender, the relationship between humans and the sky, and the history of quantification. These works provide valuable insights into the intersections of science, culture, and society throughout history. [Extracted from the article]

Who should be the author(s) of an academic paper? This question is becoming increasingly pressing due to the increasing prevalence and scale of scientific collaboration and the corresponding diversity of authorship practices in different disciplines and sub-disciplines. This article addresses the conceptual issues underlying authorship, with an eye to ameliorating authorship practices. The first part of the article distinguishes five roles played by authorship attributions: allocating credit, constructing a speaker, enabling credibility judgements, supporting accountability, and creating an intellectual marketplace. The second part of the article argues that distinguishing these functions helps us see that at least some of the confusions around authorship are due to tensions between these functions. The final part of the article suggests a way to resolve these conceptual confusions. This proposal suggests replacing authorship with a bundle of roles tailored to the functions of authorship—contributor, spokesperson, writer, and guarantor—which can be distributed in a number of different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides causal estimates showing that in developing economies, future pension benefits influence workers' decisions with respect to choice of employment sector. From the perspective of a worker, a formal job (i.e., a job that complies with government regulation) offers long-run gains because it increases the worker's expected pension benefits in the future. If workers take those gains into account when they search for formal jobs, the pension system affects formal labor supply. Using a cohort-based pension reform undertaken in Colombia, I show that a reduction in future pension benefits generated a reallocation of labor supply from taxable (formal) to nontaxable (informal) jobs as early as 9 years before the minimum retirement age was reached. Moreover, this reduction did not affect labor force participation. The estimated effect is heterogeneous, and it is concentrated among workers for whom the minimum qualifying conditions are binding and among workers with higher expected pension gains. The results presented here suggest that pension reforms have the potential to create offsetting costs, an effect that should be considered when designing pension programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a randomized controlled trial to compare different banking delivery channels. Individuals living close to banking agents and branches of the same financial institution were encouraged to open a savings account and transact at either an agent or a branch. Compared with individuals sent to a branch, individuals sent to an agent increased their number of transactions at the agent and incurred lower transaction costs there. One year later, 42% of active users still used both channels but made transactions at the agent only half as large as those made at the branch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does industrial development affect female empowerment? This paper explores the causal effects of a continent-wide expansion of a modern industry on female empowerment. Identification relies on plausibly exogenous spatiotemporal variation in gold mining in Africa. The establishment of industrial-scale mines induces female empowerment—justification of domestic violence decreases by 19%, women have better access to health care (23%) and are 31% more likely to work in services—alongside rapid economic growth. The changes are not limited to subgroups and are present across women of all ages and migration status. There are no clear changes in attitudes held by men—who are on average less likely to endorse violence—leading to a smaller gender gap in justification of violence. Despite fears that a positive shock to a male-dominated sector would reduce women's bargaining power in the household, no such change is observed. Results survive several robustness checks relating to trends and treatment distances and are supported by results on community development, including night-light and health care access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While substantial progress has been made in combating malnutrition at a global level, chronic maternal and child malnutrition remain a serious problem in many parts of the developing world. In this paper, using a randomized controlled trial design in Nepal, we evaluate a program that provided information on best practices regarding infant health and cash to families in extremely poor areas with pregnant mothers and/or children below the age of 2. We find significant and sizable impacts of the information plus cash intervention on maternal knowledge and behavior in the short run. We also find suggestive evidence of improvements in child development for the information plus cash intervention relative to groups that received information only. In a long-run, 2-year follow-up survey, we find that the information plus cash group retained significantly higher knowledge and implementation of best practices regarding early-childhood health. However, there appear to be no sustained impacts on child development or anthropometrics in the follow-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we test whether more educated candidates make less corrupt public managers. Leveraging electoral regression discontinuity design and a randomized inspection program, we show that more educated candidates commit 32% fewer moderate infringements (associated with public management), but we do not find a differential in severe irregularities (corruption related). Exploiting data on judicial records, we find this effect does not stem from differences in corrupt behavior and might be explained by differences in managerial skills. In addition, more educated mayors have the same chance of running again and being reelected as their less educated peers. Taking advantage of administrative labor records, our examination of possible mechanisms shows that educated candidates have more previous experience in the public sector and high-skill positions. Finally, we find no difference in the provision of public goods between these two groups. In summary, we find that more educated candidates are more effective bureaucrats rather than better politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Export revenue from small-scale cross-border trading activities is a critical source of income to households in often remote and disconnected border regions of sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines how this type of trade is affected by changes in market conditions driven by conflict spikes on the other side of the border. Combining a unique dataset on monthly daytime small-scale cross-border trade between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with georeferenced data of conflict events in the DRC, I investigate whether changes over time in the relative exposure to armed conflict shocks at different border posts explain differences in the evolution of local exports from Uganda to the DRC. Combining instrumental variable and difference-in-differences estimation strategies, I confirm that an increase in exposure to armed conflict activity has a large negative effect on daytime exports. Estimates vary depending on how nonclassical measurement error prevalent in most measures of conflict is accounted for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Home visiting programs often provide targeted, long-term services to disadvantaged and vulnerable families with children, though briefer, universal interventions like Family Connects are increasingly being disseminated to bring home visiting to scale. Extending research by the Family Connects developers, this paper presents findings from the first independent implementation study of the intervention. Method: Observational data were drawn from program records entered between August 2017 and February 2020 at a new Family Connects site in Racine County, WI. Indicators of program acceptance, participation, and fidelity were examined. Data collected during home visits were used to describe family needs and demographics. An analysis of data gathered after program completion examined client satisfaction and referral connections. Results: Of 2,304 families who were offered the program, 1,778 (77.2%) accepted services and 1,107 (48.0%) received services. Replicating prior findings, the program was implemented with high fidelity. Most participants needed some education (99.4%), and over half (50.6%) had a need that warranted a referral. Family needs varied by race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and health insurance status. Postprogram data gathered from 648 participants revealed high levels of program satisfaction and high rates of referral connections. Conclusion: Interpretations of the findings and implications for health equity are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In social service settings, client exposure to an intervention is often facilitated by workers (e.g., case managers, care coordinators) who have some discretion over the services their clients receive. This paper demonstrates how the empirical Bayes residuals (EBRs) of predicted random effects can reliably estimate these workers' latent decision-making tendencies, such as the tendency to refer clients to a particular intervention. As such, in nonexperimental evaluation studies, the EBR can provide a measured value for an unobserved assignment determinant, which can be included in treatment effect models to reduce confounding bias. Method: We used Monte Carlo simulation to generate data for a hypothetical evaluation scenario in which child welfare caseworkers nonrandomly referred youth to a behavioral health intervention. Model variations assessed for bias in treatment effect estimates when instrumenting for nonrandom assignment with the EBR. Results: When caseworker referral effects were evident, the EBR consistently performed well as an instrument to obtain unbiased treatment effects and generally outperformed other methods, such as partially adjusted regression and instrumenting with simple caseworker means. Conclusions: The EBR offers a useful measurement tool when estimating causal effects from nonexperimental data. Study conditions that do not support instrumental variable estimation are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of a change in a legal regime to reinstate the adjudication of criminal matters to Islamic courts and documents the effect of the change on the marital matches of women. This change reduces the litigant rights of women in cases of illicit sexual behavior and extramarital relations. Combining three rounds of a nationally representative survey in Nigeria, I show that a woman affected by the legal reform is 29.2 percentage points more likely to be married to a man who earns less than she does and significantly more likely to be married to an older man. Regarding the educational attainment of the spouse, I show that an affected woman is 21.5 percentage points less likely to be married to a spouse who has higher educational attainment. Finally, a woman affected by the reform enforcement is 7.6 percentage points less likely to report that she is involved in any four intrahousehold decisions and less likely to be involved in decision-making about spending her spouse's earnings. Some of these effects are seen only in nonmatrilineal communities, and changes in the woman's attitude toward male dominance and outside marriage utility are other channels of effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study a multidimensional women's empowerment program from India to estimate its effects on intimate partner violence faced by women. We exploit plausibly exogenous geographical variation in the implementation of the program and cohort-variation generated by eligibility rules to estimate our effects. Using a reduced form difference-in-differences design, we find evidence of lesser-reported emotional and physical violence for women potentially exposed to the program. Overall, women reported lesser intimate partner violence and controlling behavior on account of the empowerment intervention. We conjecture that improved anthropometric outcomes, higher literacy, and better labor market opportunities serve as potential mechanisms causing this effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature on political satire has focused primarily on the effects on audiences and their responses to satirical messages, neglecting the exploration of the implications of these effects. This article takes a reproduction perspective and argues that audiences regenerate and spread satirical messages to continuously denounce a political figure. By examining the circulation of "689," the humorous nickname of former chief executive C. Y. Leung in Hong Kong, this article introduces a new conceptual framework called the "collective reproduction" process, which includes three processes: (1) production, (2) circulation, and (3) reproduction. This framework is used to analyze how the opposition effectively utilized this nickname to criticize the leader throughout his term of office. Theoretical contributions include providing political satire with an ongoing approach that facilitates its circulation. Empirically, the case of Hong Kong enriches the understanding of opposition movements within the context of political satire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asset tokenization, a financial practice that generates tokens based on distributed ledger technologies such as blockchain, is a representational practice in which token issuers establish artificially devised sign relationships between tokens and assets, despite some issues and complexities of blockchain. Human confidence in this practice is critical for its successful implementation. This article suggests that human confidence in blockchain is supported and circulated by the doxa of blockchain, which the article frames as a linguistic phenomenon where people talk more about how to use a given object than about the object itself. By paying attention to the artificially devised sign relations between tokens and assets and confident stance-taking toward blockchain by users, the article argues that a linguistic approach is necessary to understand how human confidence makes asset tokenization happen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-language internet memes have emerged as a unique and popular mode of online communication, combining bilingual elements with visually textual components. These memes exhibit distinctive characteristics at semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic levels, rendering them a noteworthy semiotic phenomenon in contemporary digital culture. To deepen our understanding of cross-language internet memes, this study investigates user perceptions through a questionnaire, employing SPSS Statistics software for analysis. Applying a social semiotic approach, we decipher the semiotic mechanisms of cross-language memes, shedding light on their potential implications for identity construction. Additionally, we reflect on two prominent trends in internet meme development: the shift from monomodal to multimodal communication and from monolingual to multilingual expressions. This research hopes to provide insights for meme research and online discourse investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this special issue, we inspect material and nonhuman phenomena that contribute to interaction and meaning-making—among them sounds, visual signs, animals, images, digital devices, bodies, and movements—in order to stimulate new thinking surrounding the question of what language is from a posthumanist perspective. The contributors are language-oriented scholars who focus on material and technological environments in language. They interrogate how linguistic and nonlinguistic practices interrelate to produce meaning, concepts of the human, and social relations. The theoretical backgrounds of such posthumanist approaches to the sociomaterial practice of interaction are introduced in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Posthumanist thought brings a set of ethical and political concerns to the (socio)linguistic table to do with human relations to the planet and its other inhabitants. This opens up a space for reconsideration of language and materiality. In some accounts, language is an immaterial medium whose relation to the material world is only symbolic or representational. New materialist accounts of language, by contrast, view it as embodied, embedded and distributed activity (language is assembled and extended by bodies in physical space). This is to suggest that language, both material and symbolic, is deeply entwined with a world both material and symbolic and that any approach to sociolinguistics that seeks to grasp language in the world needs to work with an understanding of the dynamic entanglements between an animated world of matter and a material world of language. This is to focus on the material foundations of communication, the corporeal, physical, or technological conditions of human and nonhuman communicative interaction and on the relationships between material realities and discourse. This is to ask what and where language is and to suggest that without material relations there is no language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes a case for understanding International Sign (IS) as a distributed practice. IS, a translingual practice, arose from interactions among individuals from diverse linguistic backgrounds, integrating signs from multiple national sign languages and leveraging iconic and transparent features of sign language lexicons and grammars. At the heart of IS is the principle of calibration, an adaptive process aimed at aligning signs to foster mutual understanding. This study delves into the use of IS in an adult education classroom in Denmark, where IS includes not only the use of signs but also their interplay with technology and writing. The discussed examples suggest that IS is a fluid process in which people shift between conventional and adaptive signing. Furthermore, the examples showcase an intricate relationship between signing and forms of writing, suggesting that the latter should not be seen as separate from IS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the "arbitrary content of culture" (Bourdieu 1977) comes to be inscribed onto patterns of sociolinguistic variation. Specifically, we consider the role of iconicity in this process. Studies of iconicity and variation to date have tended to focus on the iconic properties of the speech signal itself (e.g., an association between higher-frequency sounds and smallness). We bring these ideas about sound symbolism into dialogue with research on embodied behavioral codes, which link particular forms of bodily comportment and their associated qualia with specific social categories and positions. We suggest that certain claims about sound symbolic meanings may be better interpreted as derived effects of socially meaningful bodily hexis. Our arguments are illustrated through a consideration of two variables, both of which have received widespread attention in the literature on variation in English: the backing and lowering of the short front vowels and the fronting/backing of /s/. We discuss how treating these variables from the perspective of socially inculcated bodies can provide a unified account of their observed sociolinguistic patterning and help to shed light on how variables accrue social meaning more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]