Researchers argue that white evangelical Christians are likely to support teaching creationism in public schools. Yet, less is known about the role religion may play in shaping attitudes toward evolution and teaching creationism among blacks and Latinos, who are overrepresented in U.S. conservative Protestant traditions. This study fills a gap in the literature by examining whether religious factors (e.g., religious affiliation and Biblical literalism) relate to differences in support for teaching creationism between blacks and Latinos compared to whites and other racial groups. Using a nationally representative survey (N = 9,425), we find that although black and Latino Americans support teaching creationism more than other groups, religion plays a stronger role among blacks in shaping support for teaching creationism instead of evolution. Results add an important racial dimension to scholarly discussions on religion and science and suggest further exploration of race alongside other factors that may contribute to support for teaching creationism.
Microcredit has received considerable attention due to its potential to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular through its effects on poverty alleviation, female empowerment and self-employment. To date, its effectiveness has largely been evaluated in terms of relieving external constraints of the poor, such as a lack of financial capital for business development. The current study examines whether, and to what extent, microcredit can change internal constraints, such as aspirational hope. We use a cross-sectional dataset of 1295 women in Sierra Leone, 854 of whom are active borrowers of a Microfinance Institution, BRAC. To assess the relationship between microcredit, aspirational hope and economic welfare, we rely on BRAC's eligibility criteria, that only allow access to finance for women living with-in 4 km of a BRAC branch. We find statistically significant and economically meaningful positive associations with both aspirational hope and economic welfare. Overall, this study suggests that microcredit could play an important role in reducing internal psychological constraints, and via this channel contributes to the realization of the SDGs.
Microfinance institutions traditionally focus on the provision of credit and other financial services.In light of recent evidence on the scant transformative effects of 'standard' microcredit models, however, some lenders are increasing efforts to offer additional non-financial services -such as business trainings and technical assistance. While literature on the effects of business trainings is quite voluminous, far less attention has been paid to microcredit in combination with technical assistance, especially salient in rural contexts. This study investigates a programme launched by Sembrar Sartawi, a Bolivian MFI, which complemented dairy farming credit with the provision of agronomic and veterinarian expertise. We collect data of approximately 600 dairy farmers from the Bolivian plateau over two data-collection waves, and conduct a variety of cross-sectional and panel regression analyses. We find that technical assistance has positive, statistically significant, and economically salient impacts on monthly revenues and milk production. Our study strongly suggests that providing access to technical assistance can be a very effective 'plus' instrument for MFIs providing financial services to rural clients. We also point at the importance of conducting further research related to costeffectiveness, to assess whether MFIs may expand technical assistance and at the same time achieve selfsustainability.
In this paper, we mathematically formalize the concept of improving sequence effect, which is one of the main anomalies of the discounted utility model [1]. The improving sequence effect implies a preference for a given sequence of outcomes, which increase over time, and has been empirically demonstrated for both monetary and nonmonetary results (hedonic experiences and health-related outputs). Nevertheless, to date, there is no mathematical treatment of this anomaly in the context of intertemporal choice, which allows us to relate this paradox to other anomalies, such as the delay and magnitude effects. In this way, the present manuscript has filled this gap. More specifically, we have proved that the improving sequence effect for monetary rewards cannot be rationalized by using a separable discount function but only by considering a non-separable discount function. Moreover, under certain conditions, we have proved that the delay and magnitude effects are necessary conditions for the existence of the improving sequence effect.
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