Laurier Economics Department congratulates its most recent Insight Development Grants recipients

The Laurier Economics Department (LED) congratulates four of its researchers who have recently been announced as recipients of SSHRC Insight Development Grants. These grants are primarily targeted at emerging researchers and are to “enable the development of new research questions, as well as experimentation with new methods, theoretical approaches and/or ideas.” 

Brian McCaig, Director of the Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis (LCERPA) said “We’re very happy for our colleagues. These grants will help them to continue to produce impactful, world-class research.” 

Congratulations to all, and we look forward to seeing more on these exciting research projects!

Ridwan Karim, Assistant Professor: Experimental evaluation of life-skills curriculum for vulnerable students in Dhaka 

Young people often don’t have the knowledge and skills to manage well in the face of adversity, which can lead them to make decisions that have bad long-run outcomes.  This is especially true if they also face challenges of poverty. Ridwan Karim and his colleagues are developing a customized life-skills curriculum that they will offer to economically and socially vulnerable madrasah-going students in Dhaka to reshape their understanding of adversity and attain more favorable education outcomes. They are going to use the SSHRC funding to launch a pilot program offering the curriculum to particular students in one group of schools, then examine how those students fare compared with other students who didn’t get the training. They hope to use the results to launch the process of scaling up the curriculum to reach a broader community. 

Antonella Mancino, Assistant Professor: The Role of Health Insurance Generosity and Doctor Prescription Behaviour on Opioid Painkiller Use and Addiction

Antonella Mancino’s work examines how the generosity of health insurance affects opioid use and addiction. The research team plans to develop a model elucidating individuals’ decisions regarding doctor visits and the utilization of legal and illegal opioid painkillers, as well over-the-counter painkillers. They will estimate the model using data from a study that randomly assigned people to different health insurance plans. This model can be used to predict how policy changes like the introduction of Drug Monitoring Programs, are likely to affect opioid use.

Zijian Wang, Assistant Professor: Digital Payments, Credit Information, and Data Privacy

The goal of Zijian Wang’s research is to understand how recent innovations such as machine learning and artificial intelligence affect the ways in which people can borrow money from banks and other financial institutions.  New data management and analysis techniques make it easier for financial institutions to use the vast amount of consumer data they have – on people’s transactions and payments, and their credit histories – to better identify who the high and low risk borrowers are. More accurate assessments of creditworthiness might benefit consumers. At least some people might get access to credit on better terms than they would have previously. On the other hand, the vast amount of consumer data may bring significant market power to financial firms who make the best use of the new technologies, which could decrease competitiveness in the credit market. This research will help with developing policies on things like data privacy and financial institution regulation generally that can help ensure the new technologies are used in ways that have broad social benefits.

Nikolai Cook, Assistant Professor: Replication without replication, publication bias, and media engagement of economics research

Nikolai Cook is working to help develop tools to better guide us in translating academic research for the public and policy makers. There is a bias towards publishing and reporting results that find an interesting statistical relationship, and against those that don’t.  And what should we make of the fact that attempts at replicating published research articles frequently fail?  If we’re going to use the research to make decisions, we need to know whether it’s reflective of real effects or simply a reflection of this selective reporting. He will collect data on past research and use existing datasets to develop methods that we can use to guide decision makers in evaluating the replicability of economics research, particularly that reported on by the media, with a goal of promoting the replicability of economics research.