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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

Khoa @khoavuumn.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

I originally thought this was about econometrics.

Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

David Evans @daveevansphd.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

A remedial education program in India worked well when teachers were given strict implementation guidelines. It worked just as well when teachers had discretion to adapt. www.nber.org/papers/w33242 by Beg, @annefitz13.bsky.social, @jkerwin.bsky.social, @profalucas.bsky.social, & @kwrahman.com

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

New @nberpubs.bsky.social working paper: "When Given Discretion Teachers Did Not Shirk: Evidence from Remedial Education in Secondary Schools" with #SabrinBeg @annefitz13.bsky.social @jkerwin.bsky.social @kwrahman.com Title summarizes it. We elaborate in the paper: www.nber.org/papers/w33242

Screen shot of title page from NBER website.
When Given Discretion Teachers Did Not Shirk: Evidence from Remedial Education in Secondary Schools

Sabrin A. Beg, Anne E. Fitzpatrick, Jason T. Kerwin, Adrienne Lucas & Khandker Wahedur Rahman

Working Paper 33242
DOI 10.3386/w33242
Issue Date December 2024

Public-sector organizations face a tradeoff: allowing workers discretion at the point of service to adapt to local needs, versus rigid harmonization to ensure uniform service delivery. We examine this tradeoff in the context of secondary schools in Odisha, India, where the centrally set curriculum is nearly 4 grades above the learning levels of the mean student. We conduct a randomized intervention that assigned schools to either a rigid or a flexible version of a remedial learning intervention that displaced the curriculum. We compare learning outcomes and teaching quality to the status quo. Both interventions increased learning by 0.11SD, about 60 percent of a year of learning, with gains throughout the learning distribution. We find no crowd-out of grade-level mastery, and no change in the likelihood of earning passing Board Marks one year later. Discretion did not lower the quality of implementation or induce shirking. Allowing teachers flexibility to adjust classroom content to student needs was beneficial and had limited downsides.

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

Tatyana Deryugina @tderyugina.bsky.social · 16/07/2024

A few weeks ago, I spoke on a panel about publishing at the CSWEP’s CeMENT workshop. I wanted to briefly share some of that advice here.

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

Hope you read, share, cite. Here is the open-access link to the paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ec... (14/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

We thank handling editor Audra Bowlus, anonymous referees, and colleagues whose constructive comments helped us improve the paper. We also thank my excellent research associates Raied Arman & Farhana Kabir. (13/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

We are also grateful to the WEE-DiFine initiative of BIGD. This project was a derivative of a separate project funded by them. (Check out ongoing RFPs of WEE-DiFine and WEE-Connect: bigd.bracu.ac.bd/all-projects/) (12/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

Regression or population parameter estimates without accounting for statement framing might be biased and the researcher will have no way of addressing this bias. Randomizing statement framing allows credible estimation of bounds (a la partial identification). (11/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

Researchers can also estimate population parameters as bounds. They can report the mean value of each statement by different framing and report the bound on the value of the parameter. (10/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

Researchers can control statement framing in regression. Interaction with covariates allows obtaining two estimates of the relationship between a variable of interest and an attitude measure. These two estimates can be used as bounds on the correlation of interest. (9/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

If all respondents receive the same framing, framing effects become a systematic feature of the data and cannot be accounted for in any analysis. To limit this systematic bias, we propose that future surveys randomize the framing of statements across respondents. (8/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

We show that the conditional mean of each aggregated index for HH heads is significantly different between treatment and control groups. For PCA, not only does the magnitude vary, but also the sign switches. We find similar results using education status as a covariate. (7/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

Building on Dunsch et al. (2018), we demonstrate the possible consequences of framing effects using two commonly used standard techniques of aggregating multiple responses: (i) Kling index (ii) PCA. (6/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

Like Dunch et al (2018), we find a significant framing effect: responses vary |7| to |21| pp for the same statements between different framings. Framing effects persist among both positively and negatively framed questions. (5/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

We randomly ask one of the two versions of the module: in one version, the first three statements are positively framed, and the following three are negatively framed, and vice versa in the second version. (4/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

We build on this work and show that even with mixing the framing of statements there remains a significant framing effect. In a baseline survey of a study on mobile money, we ask respondents six statements to measure their attitudes towards mobile money. (3/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

Asking “Is X easy to use” and “Is X not difficult to use” do not yield symmetric results. Dunch et al (2018) show that framing affects responses and suggest mitigating what they call “acquiescence bias” by mixing statement framing. (2/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 06/04/2024

🚨 New Publication 🚨 Happy to announce that @jeffbloem.bsky.social and my paper, “What I say depends on how you ask: Experimental evidence of the effect of framing on the measurement of attitudes” is published in Economics Letters. Does framing matter when measuring attitudes? Yes. 🧵 (1/14)

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 25/03/2024

Farhan is a dear junior from my school and college (i.e., high school). Farhan is battling vicious stage 4 stomach cancer (adenocarcinoma) and requires financial support for treatment. Kindly requesting to donate whatever you can afford 🙏 gofund.me/fdb346db

gofund.me

Save Farhan, a 29-Year-Old Battling Stage 4 Cancer, organized by SIFAT AHMED KHAN

Farhan Bin Liaquat, at the age of 29, stands as a beacon of hope a… SIFAT AHMED KHAN needs your support for Save Farhan, a 29-Year-Old Battling Stage 4 Cancer

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 01/11/2023

🚨🚨This is now available online. 👇👇 #EconSky 📉📈 authors.elsevier.com/c/1hy1X15DRG...

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

John Mullahy @johnmullahy.bsky.social · 24/10/2023

Hawthorne effects www.thefarside.com/2023/10/24/3

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

Vitor Possebom @vitorpossebom.bsky.social · 24/10/2023

Econometric Thread (#EconSky): Today, I will briefly discuss a few recent papers expanding the synthetic control method (SCM). I will talk about three WPss: Abadie + L'Hour (2019), Grossi, Lattarulo, Mariani, Mattei + Oner (2020); Cao + Dowd (2019) and Cattaneo, Feng, Palomba +Titiunik (2023).

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

Jason Rasgon @vectorgen.bsky.social · 01/08/2023

I guess I should re-post from the Bird Site "The Rules For Academic Success here": I always get asked for advice about starting/surviving the tenure track. Here are the rules I've found useful. Thought I'd put it out there for the masses... This list gets longer all the time

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 20/10/2023

Just a general rule of life that I keep reminding myself 👇👇👇

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

David Evans @daveevansphd.bsky.social · 12/10/2023

Here are 25+ journals where economists publish review papers. bit.ly/3QfaE6m

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

David Evans @daveevansphd.bsky.social · 12/10/2023

Here are 50+ journals where economists publish short papers. bit.ly/36qNVfn The list includes examples and my experience with each journal.

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

Jason Kerwin @jkerwin.bsky.social · 03/10/2023

Make your axis labels horizontal so people can read them. There’s no excuse anymore, it’s 2023.

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Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

Jason Kerwin @jkerwin.bsky.social · 26/09/2023

I want to shout out my amazing coauthor @DivyaPandey_UMN —keep an eye out for her when she goes on the job market next year. divyapandey.me (14/N)

Reposted by Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed]

Jason Kerwin @jkerwin.bsky.social · 26/09/2023

Think about the chance that you will die within the next decade. Got a probability in mind? Okay—how *sure* are you about it? In a new paper, we show that people express this kind of “ambiguity” or “imprecision”, and that it matters if we want to change their minds. A 🧵 👇 (1/N) #econsky 📈📉

Navigating Ambiguity: Imprecise Probabilities and the Updating of Disease Risk Beliefs

Jason T. Kerwin and Divya Pandey

September 26, 2023

Abstract
Probabilistic risk beliefs are key drivers of economic and health decisions, but people are not always certain about their beliefs. We study these "imprecise probabilities", also known as ambiguous beliefs. We show that imprecision is measurable separately from the levels of risk beliefs. People with higher levels of imprecision update their beliefs more in response to a randomized information treatment, and new information also causes changes in imprecision levels. We show that we can map our data onto both a standard Bayesian model and a version that is designed to handle imprecise probabilities; these models can match some features of our data but not all of them. Imprecise probabilities have important implications for our understanding of decisionmaking and for the design of programs intended to change people's minds.

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 23/09/2023

Two out of my 3 dissertation chapters have now found a home. I am thankful to my coauthors. Deeply grateful to my advisors and mentors (@jkerwin.bsky.social, Paul Glewwe, Marc Bellemare, and Ragui Assaad) for their suggestions, comments, and advice. 🙏🙏🙏

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Khandker Wahedur Rahman [Wahed] @kwrahman.com · 23/09/2023

🚨🚨Happy to announce that our (Sabrin Beg and Mahnaz Islam) paper on providing farmers recommendation on fertilizer usage and their behavior got accepted at the Journal of Development Economics. 🥳🥳🥳 Right now I am just too excited. We will share a thread later. #EconSky

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