https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/18359 2026-04-28T15:31:37Z 2026-04-28T15:31:37Z Fox, Jonathan F. Grigoriadis, Theocharis https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/22060 2020-01-31T16:45:12Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

A Rural Health Supplement to the Hookworm Intervention in the American South Fox, Jonathan F.; Grigoriadis, Theocharis This project re-investigates the hookworm eradication efforts of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Sanitary Commission (RSC) in the American South during the Progressive Era. The RSC worked to eradicate hookworm across 11 southern states between 1911 and 1915, efforts that have been linked to dramatic short- and long-term increases in human capital and labor productivity. Although useful from an identification standpoint, these single- shot interventions, in the absence of cooperative efforts to improve underlying conditions, have a mixed record of long-term effectiveness across public health research. The efficacy of deworming campaigns in particular has come under extensive scrutiny. The experience of the American South had stood as example of how a single-shot hookworm eradication program has improved outcomes; however, the robustness of this result has also recently come into question. A replication of the Bleakley (2007) seminal work investigating hookworm eradication finds faults with the robustness and interpretations of the results (Roodman 2017), and an investigation into the activities of the RSC has determined them unevenly distributed across hookworm-affected areas (Elman et. al 2013). Perhaps not coincidentally, the RSC’s hookworm eradication program was not the only public health intervention that occurred in the rural South during the Progressive Era. Rural public health centers spread throughout the American South during this period, partially backed by the Rockefeller Foundation. Given the use of difference-in-difference methods using decennial census data, and the participation of the Rockefeller Foundation in the funding of these rural health centers, this is a potentially critical omission in the evaluation of the RSC efforts. In this project, we investigate the connection between these rural health centers and the Rockefeller Foundation’s hookworm eradication efforts, consider whether their presence explains effects attributed thereto, and examine their importance as a follow-up program to the initial hookworm intervention.

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z Thiedig, Johannes https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/23321 2019-12-11T18:12:26Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

An economic cost-benefit analysis of a general speed limit on German highways Thiedig, Johannes Uniquely amongst industrialized countries worldwide, Germany does not im-pose a general speed limit on highways. This is different in the Netherlands, where a limit of 130km/h is implemented. The direct border between the two countries provides an opportunity to construct a natural experiment and analyze the social impact of a general speed limit of 130 km/h for passenger cars on German high-ways. I quantify the social welfare impacts from travel time, accident victims, fuel consumption and emissions for two highway sections in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The results are obtained by a descriptive comparison of micro data on travel speeds and accidents, collected on the two designated cross-border highways. In the central case, I conclude that on both highways a speed limit would be beneficial from the social and private perspective. The impacts found on the two highways differ in magnitude, but the qualitative decisions are identical and sufficiently robust to their core assumptions.

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z Schreiber, Sven https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/22037 2020-01-31T16:45:12Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Are bootstrapped cointegration test findings unreliable? Schreiber, Sven Applied time series research often faces the challenge that (a) potentially relevant variables are unobservable, (b) it is fundamentally uncertain which covariates are relevant. Thus cointegration is often analyzed in partial systems, ignoring potential (stationary) covariates. By simulating hypothesized larger systems Benati (2015) found that a nominally significant cointegration outcome using a bootstrapped rank test (Cavaliere, Rahbek, and Taylor, 2012) in the bivariate sub-system might be due to test size distortions. In this note we review this issue systematically. Apart from revisiting the partial-system results we also investigate alternative bootstrap test approaches in the larger system. Throughout we follow the given application of a long-run Phillips curve (euro-area inflation and unemployment). The methods that include the covariates do not reject the null of no cointegration, but by simulation we find that they display very low power, such that the (bivariate) partial-system approach is still preferred. The size distortions of all approaches are only mild when a standard HP- filtered output gap measure is used among the covariates. The bivariate trace test p-value of 0.027 (heteroskedasticity-consistent wild bootstrap) therefore still suggests rejection of non-cointegration at the 5% but not at the 1% significance level. The earlier findings of considerable test size distortions can be replicated when instead an output gap measure with different longer-run developments is used. This detrimental effect of large borderline-stationary roots reflects an earlier insight from the literature (Cavaliere, Rahbek, and Taylor, 2015).

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z Grigoriadis, Theocharis https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/22199 2019-12-11T18:12:23Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Aristotle vs. Plato: The Distributive Origins of the Cold War Grigoriadis, Theocharis Competing definitions of justice in Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics indicate the existence of two distinct economic systems with different normative priorities. The three-class society of the Platonic economy (guardians, auxiliaries, producers) gives rise to guardians who by virtue are expected to enforce output targets on producers directly or through auxiliaries. The three-class society of the Aristotelian economy (rich, middle, poor) facilitates the emergence of different ruling coalitions and compensates efficiency losses of vertical production processes with political gains derived from representative governance. In the Aristotelian economy, the middle class is better off than in the Platonic economy (auxiliaries), because a just society (polity) is achieved under its rule. I argue that the equilibrium solutions of the Platonic and Aristotelian systems provide the normative foundations for the distinction between plan and market.

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z