The growing multitude of sophisticated event-level data collection enables novel analyses of conflict. Even when multiple event data sets are available, researchers tend to rely on only one. We instead advocate integrating information from multiple event data sets. The advantages include facilitating analysis of relationships between different types of conflict, providing more comprehensive empirical measurement, and evaluating the relative coverage and quality of data sets. Existing integration efforts have been performed manually, with significant limitations. Therefore, we introduce Matching Event Data by Location, Time and Type (MELTT)—an automated, transparent, reproducible methodology for integrating event data sets. For the cases of Nigeria 2011, South Sudan 2015, and Libya 2014, we show that using MELTT to integrate data from four leading conflict event data sets (Uppsala Conflict Data Project–Georeferenced Event Data, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, Social Conflict Analysis Database, and Global Terrorism Database) provides a more complete picture of conflict. We also apply multiple systems estimation to show that each of these data sets has substantial missingness in coverage.
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Do firm founders from nations with more predictable and transparent institutions allocate more autonomy to their employees? A cultural imprinting view suggests that institutions inculcate beliefs that operate beyond the environment in which those beliefs originate. We leverage data from a multiplayer online role-playing game, EVE Online, a setting where individuals can establish and run their own corporations. EVE players come from around the world, but all face the same institutional environment within the game. This setting allows us to disentangle, for the first time, cultural norms from the myriad other local factors that will influence organizational design choices across nations. Our main finding is that founders residing in nations with more predictable and transparent real world institutions delegate more authority within the virtual firms they create.
Recent public sector reforms have shifted responsibility for public service delivery to local governments, yet little is known about how their management practices or behavior shape performance. This study reports on a comprehensive management survey of district education bureaucrats and their staff that was conducted in every district in Tanzania, and employs flexible machine-learning techniques to identify important management practices associated with learning outcomes. It finds that management practices explain 10 percent of variation in a district’s exam performance. The three management practices most predictive of performance are (a) the frequency of school visits, (b) school and teacher incentives administered by the district manager, and (c) performance review of staff. Although the model is not causal, these findings suggest the importance of incentives and active monitoring to motivate district staff, schools, and teachers, that include frequent monitoring of schools.
Decentralization reforms have shifted responsibility for public service delivery to local government, yet little is known about how their management practices or behavior shape performance. We conducted a comprehensive management survey of mid-level education bureaucrats and their staff in every district in Tanzania, and employ flexible machine learning techniques to identify important management practices associated with learning outcomes. We find that management practices explain 10 percent of variation in a district's exam performance. The three management practices most predictive of performance are: i) the frequency of school visits; ii) school and teacher incentives administered by the district manager; and iii) performance review of staff. Although the model is not causal, these findings suggest the importance of robust systems to motivate district staff, schools, and teachers, that include frequent monitoring of schools. They also show the importance of surveying subordinates of managers, in order to produce richer information on management practices.
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