Results for “roland fryer”
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Moving to cross-country comparisons, we find earlier results linking the gender gap in math to measures of gender equality are sensitive to the inclusion of Muslim countries, where, in spite of women’s low status, there is little or no gender gap in math.

That is for students, not mathematicians, and it is from a new paper by Roland Fryer and Steve Levitt, hat tip goes to Chris Blattman. Overall they conclude that the standard variables do not very well explain changes in the gender gap in math over time.

A non-gated version of the paper is here and it seems to be different. Here is another version.

Perkins versus Promise Academy Charter School

by Alex Tabarrok March 8, 2010 at 7:39 am in

I was astounded to read in the NYTimes that Bill Perkins, state senator from Harlem, opposes charter schools:

Over the last decade, as charter schools have multiplied, Mr. Perkins has undergone a dramatic shift and emerged as their most outspoken critic in the Legislature, writing guest columns in newspapers and delivering impassioned speeches criticizing the “privatization” of public schools.

When officials of the city’s Department of Education announced last year that they planned to place a charter school inside the Public School 123 building in Harlem, Mr. Perkins was infuriated. With help from his chief of staff, several parents and teachers’ union representatives staged a protest there on the first day of school, holding signs that labeled charter schools as “separate and unequal.”

Perkins's opposition is astounding because among the charter schools he opposes are Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children’s Zone schools. Here from the NBER Digest is a summary of recent research on these schools:

Will Dobbie and Roland Fryer find that in the fourth and fifth grade, the math test scores of charter school lottery winners and losers are virtually identical to those of a typical black student in the New York City schools. After attending the Promise Academy middle school for three years, black students score as well as comparable white students. They are 11.6 percent more likely to be scoring at grade level in sixth grade, 17.9 percent more likely to be scoring at grade level in seventh grade, and 27.5 percent more likely to be scoring at grade level by eighth grade. Overall, Promise Academy middle school enrollment appears to increase math scores by 1.2 standard deviations in eighth grade, more than the estimated benefits from reductions in class size, Teach for America, or Head Start.

These increases are very large and although supported by randomized experiment I wouldn't be surprised if future research cuts them down but if the true effect were even a quarter as large it would still be big news. As Fryer told David Brooks “The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes."

I don't know why anyone interested in the welfare of children would want to discourage this kind of experimentation.

The Ku Klux Klan

by Tyler Cowen September 16, 2007 at 1:54 pm in

History

Here is the abstract from the new Roland Fryer and Steve Levitt paper:

The Ku Klux Klan reached its heyday in the mid-1920s, claiming millions
of members. In this paper, we analyze the 1920s Klan, those who joined
it, and the social and political impact that it had. We utilize a wide
range of newly discovered data sources including information from Klan
membership roles, applications, robe-order forms, an internal audit of
the Klan by Ernst and Ernst, and a census that the Klan conducted after
an internal scandal. Combining these sources with data from the 1920
and 1930 U.S. Censuses, we find that individuals who joined the Klan
were better educated and more likely to hold professional jobs than the
typical American. Surprisingly, we find few tangible social or
political impacts of the Klan. There is little evidence that the Klan
had an effect on black or foreign born residential mobility, or on
lynching patterns. Historians have argued that the Klan was successful
in getting candidates they favored elected. Statistical analysis,
however, suggests that any direct impact of the Klan was likely to be
small. Furthermore, those who were elected had little discernible
effect on legislation passed. Rather than a terrorist organization, the
1920s Klan is best described as a social organization built through a
wildly successful pyramid scheme fueled by an army of
highly-incentivized sales agents selling hatred, religious intolerance,
and fraternity in a time and place where there was tremendous demand.

I find this interpretation plausible; for many (evil) people, evil is downright fun, especially if you are bored in the first place. Both Donnie Brasco and The Sopranos capture aspects of this equation.

Google does not generate a non-gated version, let us know in the comments if I missed one.

The economics of street charity

by Tyler Cowen August 9, 2007 at 2:20 pm in

Economics

Freakonomics/NYT holds a symposium, including me, Nassim Taleb, Barbara Ehrenreich, Arthur Brooks, and Mark Cuban, with guest comments from Roland Fryer and Stephen Dubner. My first sentence:

I’m not keen on giving money to the beggar.

Here is another bit of mine:

Oddly, the case for giving to the beggar may be stronger if he is an alcoholic. Alcoholism increases the chance that he is asking for the money randomly, rather than pursuing some well-calculated strategy of wastefully investing resources into begging. But in that case, I expect the gift will be squandered on booze, so I still don’t want to give him the money.

Assorted Links

by Alex Tabarrok June 11, 2007 at 4:33 pm in

Economics

1. Roland Fryer’s plan to offer cash for learning is moving forward slowly but surely.

2. The NetFlix prize is moving forward slowly but surely.

3. Greg Mankiw was almost a philosopher but decided the money was better in economics and almost a lawyer but decided the money wasn’t worth the boredom. Clearly, Greg made good choices.

Markets in everything

by Tyler Cowen November 20, 2006 at 2:22 pm in

Economics

Wuhan, my hometown in Central China, plans to sell the right to name streets, bridges, public plazas and high-rise buildings to businesses in exchange for money the municipal government desperately needs to make up for a "funding shortage in government operations."

Here is the story, and thanks to Petras Kudaras for the pointer.

Robert Tagorda sends along a story of governments doing the buying rather than the selling:

State leaders have tried for years to get more minority and low-income high school students to take tougher classes. One group Thursday proposed an eye-opening idea: Pay students to take the classes. The Minnesota Private College Council called on the state to spend $50 million a year to pay eligible high school students who take and pass college-prep classes.

Alex once blogged on Roland Fryer, and paying students to get better grades.

Poverty traps and demands for loyalty

by Tyler Cowen July 25, 2006 at 3:49 am in

Economics

The new Roland Fryer paper looks promising:

This paper develops a model of social interactions and endogenous
poverty traps. The key idea is captured in a framework in which the
likelihood of future social interactions with members of one’s group is
partly determined by group-specific investments made by individuals. I
prove three main results. First, some individuals expected to make
group-specific capital investments are worse off because their observed
decision is used as a litmus test of group loyalty – creating a
tradeoff between human capital and cooperation among the group. Second,
there exist equilibria which exhibit bi-polar human capital investment
behavior by individuals of similar ability. Third, as social mobility
increases this bi-polarization increases. The models predictions are
consistent with the bifurcation of distinctively black names in the
mid-1960s, the erosion of black neighborhoods in the 1970s, accusations
of ‘acting white,’ and the efficacy of certain programs designed to
encourage human capital acquisition.

I have observed similar behavior among small ideological groups. The more some members from that group succeed, the stronger the litmus/loyalty test required from remaining members. Polarization accelerates. Those who are left behind are often worse off than if a pooling equilibrium — everyone together in the same boot — had held.

Results for “roland fryer” 40 found

Results for “roland fryer”
40 found