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Abstract

Asadi, Ghadir, Mostafavi-Dehzooei, Mohammad H. "The Role of Learning in Adaptation to Technology: The Case of Groundwater Extraction." Sustainability. 2022; 14(12):7136. DOI

Learning may play an important role in adopting new technology. While the role of learning in the decision to adopt has been widely investigated in the literature, to the best of our knowledge its role in knowing how to best use technology and the speed of learning has not been studied extensively. An example of this situation is when farmers adopt groundwater extraction technology. In this case, they need to learn the exact cost and benefit of extracting water in relation to how they use it in practice. By comparing the extraction behavior of farmers who own new wells with farmers who own old wells, this paper explores the role of experience in shaping farmers’ decisions. Three identification strategies are used in this study to test the hypothesis that owners with less experience (owners of new wells) with groundwater technology are able to extract more water than experienced owners. The first strategy employs panel data. The results of this model show that groundwater extraction rises as the growth rate in the number of new wells increases. The second strategy uses the exogenous variation in precipitation shocks in a double-difference approach. Employing census data at the well level, this study shows that 6–13% more water is extracted from new wells than from older wells and that the difference in extraction increases in areas that experience negative precipitation shocks. The third strategy uses the nearest-neighbor matching method, which shows that new wells extract 11% more groundwater per year compared to old wells, indicating that old wells are more efficient in maintaining their inter-temporal extraction. These findings have important implications for discussions of regulating a common pool resource. In the literature regarding the common pool problem, firms are often considered entities with complete information about their true abatement costs. An implication of the findings of this paper is that quantity instruments for regulating groundwater extraction fail to guarantee productive efficiency when farmers face uncertainty about their marginal abatement cost. The results of this study show that it takes a few years for farmers to adapt to new technologies. According to this finding, a recommendation to policymakers, therefore, is that they must consider this time lag in learning how to use new technologies when proposing policies to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Asadi, Ghadir. "Parents' investments in the quality of education: the case of Ghana." Education Economics 28, no. 6 (2020): 621-646. DOI

While school enrollment at the primary level has been rising in developing countries rapidly, international measures of education quality do not exhibit a parallel improvement. Since parents’ expenditure is an important determinant of children’s school performance, we investigate parents’ investments on quality measured by their spending on books and other school materials. We develop an overlapping generations model in which parents use children’s human capital as a screening measure for adjusting their investment. Our main hypothesis is that families consider better school performance to be a reliable predictor of future return, and this will incentivize them to invest more.

Welfare, L.E., Grims, T.O., Lawson, G., K, Hori, and Asadi, G. "The School to Prison Pipeline: Quantitative Evidence to Guide School Counselor Advocacy." Journal of Counselor Leadership and Advocacy (2020): 1-14. DOI

The school to prison pipeline begins with disciplinary incidents which result in suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to law enforcement. We analyzed 230,988 disciplinary infractions from one year in public K-12 schools in Virginia. We found evidence that Black male and female students are overrepresented in initial infractions and overrepresentation worsens only at the more discretionary points of the school to prison pipeline. A three-pronged approach to school counselor advocacy for transformative change is detailed herein.

Lawson, G., Asadi, G., Welfare, L.E., Miyazaki, Y., and Hori, K. "Integrating Large Data Sets in Outcome Research." Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation (2021): 1-10. DOI

Existing datasets can be especially useful in counseling outcome research. Institutional or governmental resources such as electronic
medical, educational, social services, and criminal justice records hold valuable information about our clients’ lives (e.g. systemic issues, barriers to treatment, advocacy needs). Unfortunately, these datasets often exist in silos so tracking an individual across multiple datasets is a complex challenge. In this article, we describe our approach to linking individuals across an existing statewide K-12 student discipline database and a statewide juvenile justice database. We also describe data security safeguards and strategies for success utilizing archival data.

Book Chapter: Ebadi, Nasim, Asadi, Ghadir, Technology Makes It Easier, In: Teaching in the University: Learning from Graduate Students and Early-Career Faculty, Westfall-Rudd, D., Veringrin, C., and Elliott-Engle, J. (eds.). Blacksburg: Virginia Tech Publishing, License: CC BY-NC 4.0., 2022. DOI

Imagine that you have a large class full of students whom you might not have a chance to talk with during the semester. You want all of them to be engaged in the class and participate in the class activities. You might also find undergraduate students to be very shy about participating during class time. Students may be especially hesitant to answer your question while you are teaching new material. Or, you wish to grade the assignments faster and give quizzes every other session without spending so much time with paper collection, grading, and grade entry. You might find it a tedious task to reply to students’ emails about this week’s reading list, midterm date, due dates, and their standing so far in the semester. A well-designed technology-integrated course might be the solution to your problems. Technology integration is a dynamic process of design, implementation, and evaluation.

Published

Working Papers

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Workin Papers

The Effects of Precipitation Shocks on Rural Labor Markets and Migration

The welfare of workers in rural areas is highly affected by agricultural output volatility, caused in part by weather shocks. A volatile source of income is an important factor in inducing migration. While the impact of rainfall shocks on migration is well studied, the channels through which these shocks affect migration is underexplored. This paper hypothesizes that the labor market is an avenue that carries the effect of precipitation shocks on migration. We first establish the effect of precipitation shocks on the labor market. We use individual-level panel-data combined with station-based precipitation data at the rural-agglomeration level. Using a fixed-effects panel-data model, we find that workers in agriculture and industry sectors increase their hours of work in response to positive shocks, and women quit employment when a negative shock occurs. We then use a linear probability model to show that negative shocks raise the probability of migration and labor-migration for young men. We do not find any statistically significant impact on the migration of women and 40-55 years old men. Estimations of this paper indicate that migration is higher out of regions with a larger unemployment rate, and migrants move to destinations with a larger wage rate. Additionally, controlling for the local labor market conditions at origin captures the impact of shocks on migration, implying the labor market is a channel through which precipitation shocks affect migratory decisions.

Building Level Factors in the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Path Analysis Using Virginia High School Data in 2013

Path analysis and follow-up multiple regression analysis were conducted to examine the School to Prison Pipeline (STPP) hypothesis formulated at the ecological level using data from all high schools in Virginia in the 2013-14 academic year. The STPP hypothesis links the increased use of exclusionary school discipline against individual students with lower rates of graduation and higher rates of involvement in the court system. The STPP is mainly an individual-level model, but in the present study, we extend this theory to the school building level. The analyses supported our hypothesis that frequent use of exclusionary discipline will lead to a higher rate of conviction and lower graduation rate.