Econ7100 Project Evaluation
Final Class Project
The main purpose of the final project is for students to estimate the impact of a real randomized control trial RCT. The randomized control trial you will examine provided information to first- time mothers living in poverty in Nashville TN. The information to first-time mothers was provided in books, called hereafter “Baby-Books.” Mothers in the intervention group received new baby-books every two-months. The hypotheses of this RCT were that the new information provided to mothers via “Baby-Books” would:
1) Improve parenting skills
2) Improve nutritional practices with their babies,
3) Prevent un-intentionally baby injuries.
4) Improve post-partum depression and stress levels
5) Impact labor participation
Overall, helping first-time young women to overcome the anxiety of becoming first time mothers’ should therefore, improve their own and their baby’s health in the short and long run.
Each group will estimate an intent to treat (ITT) and the treatment on the treated (TOT) effect of the randomized educational book intervention. To measure the effect of this intervention, first time mothers were randomly assigned to one of three groups: 1) an educational book group (the intervention), 2) anon-educational book group, or 3) a no book group. Participants were interviewed by either phone (12 times) or personal interviews (7 times).
On the interviews, participants self-reported all the outcomes of interest such as type and occurrence of their child’s unintentional injuries, knowledge learned by reading the given books, labor market outcomes, post-partum depression, stress, and many other important outcomes.
Each one of the groups in class will examine the impact of this randomized intervention on one or two outcomes of interest.
Each group will write a 10-15 page report. In addition, each group will submit a do file, a log, a report in Word, and a powerpoint presentation (about 15-20 slides). The report and powerpoint presentation should include five sections: Introduction, Data description, Methodology, Main Results, Conclusions, and Recommendations.
There will be five groups, each group should answer the following questions:
1) What is the intervention about? Explain the study design, sample size by group at baseline. Write down the results chain describing the inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes of this intervention. (10 points)
2) Did the intervention have a valid counterfactual? (10 points)
3) Estimate the outcomes of interest by subject, group, and time. (Suggestion: make sure you estimate the outcomes of interest at baseline and create fixed time intervals, following the baby’s age at 0, 6, 12 and 18 months old. Some outcomes were not asked at the exact desirable time intervals, but you can estimate the mean or sum of the outcomes at the nearest given time). (10 points)
a. Identify all the variables you will use in your analysis and create two final
datasets: 1) A wide cross-sectional dataset including household demographics, outcome of interest, and time fixed variables. 2) A panel dataset. (10 points)
b. Estimate the impact of the intervention by using the following methods:
1) Pre-Post analysis, (10 points)
2) Randomized Assignment, (10 points)
3) Difference-In-Difference (10 points)
Explain and compare your results. For each estimation, explain whether the outcome improved or got worse? Interpret the results
4) What characteristics (mother’s or babies) correlate with the outcome of interest?
For instance, were children’s injuries a function of their own developmental growth (i.e. increasing as children grow older), children’s gender (i.e. do boys have more injuries than girls?), mother’s education? mother’sincome. (5 points)
5) Estimate the TOT intervention effect by using a Randomized Assignment and a DID methodology. Explain and compare your results with previous ITT. (10 points)
6) 15% creativity, group organization, attendance, consistency.
Data and Documentation: All questionnaires use to gather the information, dataset, and codebooks are available on BrightSpace.
Due date: The final report is due Dic 11th. The project presentations are due Dec 2 and 4 (two group presentations per class). Attendance at group presentations is mandatory (plan accordingly). Each student should ask at least one question at the group presenting their work.
Meetings with Professor:
Starting Nov 4th, each group will meet with your professor during class time to review questions you might have AND to show progress. Meetings with your professor will take place at Calhoun 403 during regular class time, following the following schedule:
Monday Nov4 2:35-2:55pm Group1; 3-3:20pm Group2; 3:20-3:40pm Group 3
Wednesday Nov6 2:35-2:55pm Group4; 3-3:20pm Group5; 3:20-3-40pmAny-Group
Monday Nov11 2:35-2:55pm Group5; 3-3:20pm Group4; 3:20-3:40pm Group 3
Wednesday Nov13 2:35-2:55pm Group2; 3-3:20pm Group1; 3:20-3-40pmAny-Group
Monday Nov18 2:35-2:55pm Group1; 3-3:20pm Group2; 3:20-3:40pm Group 3
Wednesday Nov20 2:35-2:55pm Group4; 3-3:20pm Group5; 3:20-3-40pmAny-Group
All group members should attend the meetings. If a group does not have any questions or does not have any progress, please notify your professor and cancel the scheduled meeting.
Remember all group members should attend. If you attend a group meeting, come prepare, never empty-handed, and have concrete questions and possible solutions.
List of outcomes - randomly distributed among four groups:
1. Nutrition, Safety knowledge, and total Mother’s knowledge
2. Parenting, Development, and Total Mother’s knowledge
3. Total Mother’s knowledge, Mother’s depression and Mother’s stress
4. Total Mother’s knowledge and Unintentional children’s injuries
5. Total Mother's knowledge and Labor Supply outcomes