Writing Assignment 8

Summary: The main public policy understanding in the poor's fertility decision is based on their access to contraception. Lately studies have shown that other social norms such as family dynamics, and economic considerations also play a key role. A collossal determinant is the treatment of women. It seems that social policy aimed at eliminating discrimination against women can be a huge step in influencing population.
The stat that I decided to create a regression analysis on is the birth rate for teens in America. " In the United States, which has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world, there are 4.5 births per 100 adolescent women."
I would hypothesis that teen pregnancy is negatively correlated with family income and amount of education. I believe these two factors are key determinents in both sexual activity and sexual prevention. To test this hypothesis I would regress teen pregnancy rates on the amount of education per pregnant teen and the family income per pregnant teen. I would also regress these dependent variable by themselves to see the relationship.
The dummy variable I would add is the presence of sexual education in their school system. Pregnant teens with sex ed would get a 1 while teens without sex ed would get a 0. I would expect my dummy variable to tell me that more teens without sexual education courses get pregnant. I expect my dummy variable for sexual education courses to be negative.
Finally my regression equation would look something like this Teenbrthrates=X+X1education+X2familyincome+Ei

MONEY BALL EXTRA CREDIT


Billy Beane uses on base percentage as his statistical analysis to build his team. While this statistic is very useful for a team like the Oakland A's, who do not have a lot of money to spend, it is not very practical. In my opinion while the movie does make sense I think this is an isolated incident. The Oakland A's did not do very well the following year which leads me to believe it was a one time thing. My reasoning behind this is that baseball is not completely random. This theory violates the classical linear regression because baseball is not random. There is skill behind all of the statistics assumed in the movie.

My main argument for this movie is that for one year it worked. No other team, even after people began using Beane's theory of OBS has ever been able to perform like the A's that year. In our regressions we assume everything is random. In baseball skill makes these variables not random. While OBP is a good indication for batters we also have to look at pitchers. A team will never be able to acquire an extremely good pitcher without giving the money necessary for their skill. Also when looking at OBP you are also evaluating walks. This in itself is very random. No one looks for walks but instead might have a "good eye". While my argument that skill effects the randomness of baseball I do believe Beane developed a very useful measurement. The only problem is that every team began to use the same technique.

My article was "Santorum's shifting views on education" from fox news. While some of this article focused on the presidential primary, the body of the article concentrated on government spending for public education. Santorum shows that he thinks less spending should be used for public schooling inferring that the education multiplier is not adequate. He instead believes we should be looking for support from parents in enhancing public schools in America. While Santorum's ideas may seem to be politically based it does ask a very good question. How much can increased government expenditures increase SAT performance if parents and students are not motivated?

This question present a kink in my analysis. It would be very useful for me to look into what motivated the parents and students. Is it purely a social phenomenon or can specific government finances shift this motivation. For example spending on new facilities can increase the motivation for the students to do better. From out readings in Chapter 4 it is safe to assume spending cannot directly influence motivation.

To help answer this question maybe we should look into non-financial based help the government can support. For example advocating a public service announcement instilling the importance of higher education. Finally there seems to be no one answer to the dilemma presented by Santorum. At the end of the day many districts are stuck in a poverty trap. Poor facilities combined with low motivation, due to unseen benefits, keeps many school districts under performing.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/01/spin-meter-santorums-shifting-views-on-education/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fnational+%28Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text%29