This research aims to better understand the impact of the Matlab health interventions by using panel data to control for unobservables and understand the dynamics and long-term effects of these programs. Heterogeneity in the fertility response to the family planning program is analyzed, using sequential fertility to isolate the family planning program from other interventions and examine heterogeneity based on time-varying characteristics. The link between childhood measles vaccination and school enrollment is examined using instrumental variables, and is motivated by the hypothesis that by avoiding the long-term health effects of a disease, vaccinated children are higher-achieving. Both analyses generate interesting findings that are not captured using the traditional methodologies and outcomes of program evaluation.

Julia Driessen, PhD, is an assistant professor of health policy and management in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. She has a secondary appointment in the Department of Economics. In 2011 Dr. Driessen received her PhD in Economics from Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests include program evaluation and the links between health interventions and socioeconomic status, with an emphasis on heterogeneity of program effects as well as long-term outcomes. Recent research has analyzed the schooling effects of childhood measles vaccination and variation in the fertility response to a family planning program in Bangladesh. Her primary new interest since arriving at Pitt is the clinical and financial effects of electronic medical records in developing countries.

Population aging in Asian societies is accompanied by changes in intergenerational living arrangements, which can have substantial health and economic implications for the elderly parents and their adult children. Dr. Young Kyung Do will present some of his recent works related to elderly living arrangements in South Korea. These works include the effect of coresidence with an adult child on depressive symptoms among older widowed women; the relationship between adult children's coresidence with parents and their labor force participation; and interrelations between expectations about bequests and informal care with special emphasis on the role of intergenerational coresidence. In these studies, Dr. Do attempted to account for a common methodological issue: living arrangements are not always randomly assigned but may be jointly decided with the outcome of interest taken into account by either the elderly parents or their adult children. While this seminar will focus on the South Korean context, the significance and implications apply to many other Asian societies undergoing population aging and marked transitions in elderly living arrangements.

Dr. Young Kyung Do is an assistant professor at the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS), Program in Health Services and Systems Research. His research interests include the economic and health system impact of population aging and noncommunicable disease; interactions between self-care, informal care, and formal care interfaces; and health, education, and labor market outcomes over the life course. He received his MD (1997) and master of public health (2003) degrees from Seoul National University, subsequently completing his PhD in Health Policy and Management (2008) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the inaugural Asia Health Policy postdoctoral fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center,(2008−9).

We offer the first large scale, multiple source analysis of the outcome of what may be the most extensive effort to selectively censor human expression ever implemented. To do this, we have devised a system to locate, download, and analyze the content of millions of social media posts originating from nearly 1,400 different social media services all over China before the Chinese government is able to find, evaluate, and censor (i.e., remove from the Internet) the large subset they deem objectionable. Using modern computer-assisted text analytic methods that we adapt and validate in the Chinese language, we compare the substantive content of posts censored to those not censored over time in each of 95 issue areas. Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content. Censorship is oriented toward attempting to forestall collective activities that are occurring now or may occur in the future -- and, as such, seem to clearly expose government intent, such as examples we offer where sharp increases in censorship presage government action outside the Internet. This is joint work with Jennifer Pan and Molly Roberts.

Gary King is the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard University -- one of 24 with the title of University Professor, Harvard's most distinguished faculty position. He is based in the Department of Government (in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and serves as director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. King develops and applies empirical methods in many areas of social science research, focusing on innovations that span the range from statistical theory to practical application.

King received a B.A. from SUNY New Paltz (1980) and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1984). His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the National Institute of Aging, the Global Forum for Health Research, and centers, corporations, foundations, and other federal agencies.

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Minoru Aosaki, "Banking System and Sovereign Risk in Japan"

After the financial crisis of 2008, European financial markets have experienced sharp increases of sovereign risk. This adversely affected the solvency of banking institutions as they suffered losses from their sovereign holdings and deterioration in their funding conditions. Meanwhile, Japan's sovereign market remained stable, but market participants were cautious as the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest in the world, and its banking sector holds as much as 44% of domestic sovereign debt. The question is how Japanese policy makers should address the sovereign risk in the banking system. In pursuit of this question, Aosaki compares the market environment in Japan and the Euro Area, examining the reasons banks hold sovereign bonds and the channels that connect sovereign risk with the banking system.

Prashant Pandya, "Cell-based Therapies -- Current Trends and Future Prospects"

Stem cells have been the subject of considerable excitement and debate over the last decade. Stem cell therapy is emerging as a potentially revolutionary new way to treat disease and injury, with wide-ranging medical benefits. Stem cell research provides the opportunity to advance our understanding of human biology and treatment of various diseases. In Pandya’s research, he shares his experience about major challenges related to the commercial development of stem cell therapies and key technology drivers. This research is based on consultations with several prestigious regulatory agencies—including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, and Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia—as well as interviews with 45 CEOs and senior scientists of large and small biotech companies and professors from leading universities across five countries. Pandya’s research reveals that there are many intriguing aspects of stem cells still remaining to be elucidated. Stem cells have the potential to treat an enormous range of diseases and conditions that plague millions of people and offer exciting promise for future therapies. But significant technical hurdles remain that will only be overcome through years of intensive research, and successful commercialization of cell-based therapies requires more than proving safety and efficacy to regulators. Ultimately the therapy must be commercially viable.

Ramnath Ramanathan, "Designing Toxicology Studies for Small Interfering Ribo Nucleic Acid"

The field of medicine has improved drastically over the period of time. Medical treatment has evolved from using plant extracts to chemical drugs to stem cell and gene therapies. Discovery of small interfering Ribo Nucleic Acid (siRNA) was one of the most important recent breakthroughs in the field of medicine. This was due to siRNA’s capability of posttranscriptional gene silencing by destruction of mRNA and thereby reducing the protein synthesis. Though the efficacy studies conducted in vitro and in animal models are promising, there have also been circumstances where there were adverse effects including mortality of animals treated with siRNA. Since RNA interference is a relatively new technique, it is very important to understand the toxicity involved before using it as a therapy. For this purpose, toxicology studies have to be designed in order to address all questions on the safety aspects of siRNA. In addition to the traditional toxicity studies, several other tests will have to be conducted. These additional studies will have to address issues specific to siRNA therapy such as immune activation, formation of tetraplex DNA, down regulation of non-target mRNA, interaction with cellular proteins, etc. Through Ramanathan’s work, he has designed a battery of toxicology studies to understand the side effects so that only relatively safe therapy is tried on humans during clinical trials. Ramanathan will present his findings.