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Katherine Baird, an economist, clearly spells out how our educational system is trapped in mediocrity. She points the direction to where we need to go to get out of the trap and carefully examines each factor that has lead to the current state in education

Because they do not account for the private component of household's health care expenses, measures of nations' redistributive effort inconsistently account for the financial burden their health-care system places on different households. We recalculate the effect of government policy on income distribution by adjusting household income not just for taxes and social transfers, but also for private health expenditures. Examining eight LIS datasets, we show the degree of bias in typical measures of post-government income distribution. In Switzerland and the U.S., for instance, post-government poverty rates climb by 3-4 percentage points once households' private medical expenses are subtracted from income. Future assessments of governments' redistributive effect should uniformly account for the distributional impact of their health-care financing policies.

As health care costs rise, so too does the importance of assessing their incidence, and factoring these costs into measures of post-government income distribution. This paper contributes to this assessment by calculating the effect of government policy on the distribution of income by adjusting income not only for taxes paid and social transfers received, but also for households' health expenditures. Standard measures of the effect of government policy on the distribution of income inconsistently accounts for these expenses; such inconsistencies result in biased measures of post-government income distribution. Here we account as much as possible for this inconsistency to provide more accurate cross-national comparisons of governments' redistributive effort. Using eight nationally-representative household datasets from 2010, we modify post-government income by treating households' health care costs similarly across countries. The results show the degree of bias in common estimates of the distribution of disposable income. In Switzerland and the US, for instance, estimates of post-government poverty rates climb by three to four percentage points once we account for households' medical expenses. We find that including private health care spending in measures of countries' redistributive effort results in greater variation among countries in their redistributive effort. We conclude that future assessments of governments' redistributive effort should uniformly account for the burden nations' health care financing policies place on households.

How adequately did governments protect their citizens over the Great Recession? The recent recession, the worst since the Great Depression, provides an opportune moment to investigate the adequacy and fairness of countries' responses to an economic crisis. Using household-level LIS data from eleven OECD nations, I calculate the recession's impact among the non-elderly population on earned income across the income distribution, and investigate the degree to which additional government transfers compensated for these losses. While the recession's impact on earned income varied significantly both across and within countries, in most countries additional government transfers to citizens offset the steep declines in household incomes that occurred along the income distribution, and reversed increases in inequality. A notable shortcoming across many countries was that the protection provided to income shocks was not progressively distributed; in a number of countries, the lowest income citizens experienced the sharpest drops in disposable income. Investigating patterns of responses across the different countries fails to verify "path dependency" claims about how welfare state regimes differ, and how their responses to income shocks might vary; instead I find support for predictions of a convergence in welfare state policy.

The organization of baseball in Cuba offers a stark contrast with the organization of baseball in the United States. Whereas baseball in the United States is largely coordinated by market forces, in Cuba, political decisions account for the determination of player salary, team composition, team location, and the distribution of player talent. This article examines the operation and out-comes associated with the organization of Cuban baseball. Although the Cuban model avoids some of the problems afflicting professional baseball in the United States, a close analysis reveals the inequities and disadvantages in the Cuban model. The case study illustrates that organizing sporting leagues through nonmarket rules has its own drawbacks.

Sub‐Saharan agriculture, with few exceptions, has stagnated despite official goals of achieving self‐sufficiency and increasing export earnings. African agriculture has suffered deteriorating terms of trade, inadequate technology and infrastructure, and policies which severely discourage agricultural enterprise. In some countries structural adjustment and policy reform are occurring, and there remains great potential for agricultural development due in part to prospective advantages in natural resources and abundant labor. Discussed here are a specific set of institutional reforms needed to mobilize agricultural entrepreneurship.

Sub-Saharan African agriculture has suffered from deteriorating terms of trade, inadequate technology & infrastructure, & policies that severely discourage agricultural enterprise. In some countries, however, structural adjustment & policy reform are occurring, with great potential for agricultural development because of advantages in natural resources & abundant labor. Discussed here are a specific set of institutional reforms needed to mobilize agricultural entrepreneurship, eg, reforms directed at the legal system, businesses, & financial institutions. 6 Tables, 11 References. Adapted from the source document.

ObjectiveThis article examines the impact that reducing the distance to a voter's nearest ballot drop box has on turnout.MethodsThe placement of five new ballot drop boxes was randomized among six potential sites identified based on similar criteria. The randomization of the five boxes across the six sites created natural Treatment (those sites that received a new box) and Placebo (the site that did not receive a new box) groups. We then employed a difference‐in‐difference design to determine whether voters in the Treatment group were more likely to vote in the 2017 general election compared to those in the Placebo group.ResultsWe find that a decrease of one mile to the nearest drop box increased the probability of voting by 0.64 percent.ConclusionOur finding indicates that drop boxes have a positive effect on voter turnout and that decreasing the distance to these boxes can lead to an increased likelihood of voting.