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Dionissi Aliprantis |

Research Economist

Dionissi Aliprantis, Research Economist

Dionissi Aliprantis is a research economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. He is primarily interested in applied econometrics, labor and urban economics, and education. His current work investigates neighborhood effects on education and labor market outcomes.

Dionissi completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in May 2010. He earned his BS in mathematics and BA in economics and Spanish at Indiana University.

  • Fed Publications
Title Date Publication Author(s) Type

 

 February, 2012 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 11-22 ; Working Papers
Abstract: This paper investigates which parameters can be identified by the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing mobility experiment. Program effects and neighborhood effects are shown to be conceptually distinct parameters defined in different models with different identifying assumptions. Four assumptions identifying neighborhood effects are given special consideration: strong ignorability (SI), essential heterogeneity (EH), the Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption (SUTVA), and that individuals are observed in all treatment states. Empirical evidence is presented that the variation in neighborhoods induced by MTO does not identify effects from moving to high-quality neighborhoods. Relaxing SI by assuming EH leaves many of the remaining neighborhood effects of interest unidentified by MTO. Under EH neighborhood effects vary across individuals over a unit interval, and MTO identifies the average effect over a subinterval determined by selection into treatment. One implication is that programs designed around measures other than poverty might have larger effects than MTO. [This paper has been substantially revised from previous versions. Previous versions: September 2011 (PDF) | January 2011 (PDF)].
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 January, 2012 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 12-01 ; Working Papers
Abstract: The international community has pledged $11 billion to Haiti, a country where nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provide nearly all public goods and services. This paper addresses two questions about these NGOs: How can they most effectively perform their own work, and how can they integrate their programs into broader efforts organized by public institutions? I evaluate the community-based model of Haiti Outreach (HO), which trains communities to manage wells after they have been constructed. The effect of this training is identified by comparing the outcomes of HO's wells with a control group of wells that were refurbished by HO but then managed by other groups. Wells managed under the community-based approach are 8.7 percentage points more likely to be functioning after one year. I also propose a social planner's problem to quantify the tradeoff between equity and efficiency created by user fees that may be applied to many development programs. A social planner indifferent between standard and community-based interventions has strong preferences for sporadically providing water to the poorest members of a community at the expense of sustainably providing water to the majority of community members. Policymakers deciding between alternative interventions should also give consideration to the community-based approach for its ability to build political institutions.
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 December, 2011 ; Mary Zenker; Economic Commentary
Abstract: Although the U.S. poverty rate was the same in 2000 as it was in 1970, the geographic distribution of the poor has become more concentrated. A higher concentration of poor in poor neighborhoods is a concern because it may mean the poor are exposed to fewer opportunities that affect their outcomes in life, like employment and income. We show where and how poverty has become more concentrated in the United States, and who is most likely to be affected. Online appendix.
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 October, 2011 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland working paper no. wp11-26 ; Working Papers
Abstract: Our understanding of effects from kindergarten entrance age is complicated by at least two facts: a child’s age relative to their classmates may be just as important as their entrance age, and the choice of parents or schools to delay a child’s enrollment is likely to be correlated with entrance age effects. This paper addresses both of these issues by presenting a novel identification strategy for separately estimating effects from entrance and relative age at school entry that addresses the issue of essential heterogeneity. After first selecting a sample of children from the ECLS-K data set with quasi-random variation in entrance and relative ages, this paper then specifies and estimates education production functions for achievement. Entrance age parameters are positive, large, and persist until the spring of third grade. Relative age parameters are smaller, tend to be negative, and fade out for math achievement by third grade. The estimated parameters have the following implications for the average child in our sample: both an earlier entrance cutoff date and an earlier birth date will increase achievement if the child remains eligible. There is evidence of extreme heterogeneity in effects by gender and home environment, and these are likely to be the results most relevant for policy.
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 October, 2011 ; Timothy Dunne; Kyle Fee; Economic Commentary
Abstract: Workers with more education typically earn more than those with less education, and the difference has been growing in recent decades. Not surprisingly, the percentage of the population going after and getting a college degree has been rising as well. Since the late 1970s, though, the increase in college attainment has stalled for men and gathered steam for women. Among college-age individuals, more women now graduate than men. Changes in labor market incentives appear to explain the increased investment in education made by women. But men's investments in education have been much less responsive to the same incentives.
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 January, 2011 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 11-01 ; Working Papers
Abstract: This paper has been updated and expanded. For the new version, see WP 11-22.
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 September, 2010 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland working paper, no. 10-12 ; Working Papers
Abstract: A wide literature uses date of birth as an instrument to study the causal effects of educational attainment. This paper shows how parents delaying their children’s initial enrollment in kindergarten, a practice known as redshirting, can make estimates obtained through this identification framework all but impossible to interpret. A latent index model is used to illustrate how the monotonicity assumption in this framework is violated if redshirting decisions are made in a setting of essential heterogeneity. Empirical evidence is presented from the ECLS-K data set that favors this scenario; redshirting is common and heterogeneity in the treatment effect of educational attainment is likely a factor in parents’ redshirting decisions.
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