Publications

Publications

Browse FSI scholarship on geopolitics, global health, energy, cybersecurity and more.

Featured Publications

Building a Control Regime for Nonstrategic Nuclear Warheads in Europe

A new report led by Rose Gottemoeller on non-strategic nuclear warhead policies in Europe, particulary in light of Russia's changing status in the global nuclear community.

European Nuclear Arms Control

South Korea’s Democracy in Crisis

A close look at what is driving illiberalism and democratic delcine in today’s Korea, including political polarization, politicization of institutions, societal inequality, education, and social media.

Democracy in South Korea

System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot

A forward-thinking manifesto which reveals how big tech’s obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental human values.

System Error

Publications

The Americas Caribbean Antigua & Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Grenada Haiti Jamaica St. Kitts & Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent & the Grenadines Trinidad & Tobago Central America Belize Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Panama North America Canada Mexico United States South America Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Guyana Paraguay Peru Suriname Uruguay Venezuela Asia-Pacific Northeast Asia China Japan Mongolia North Korea South Korea Taiwan Oceania Australia Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Micronesia Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu South Asia Afghanistan Bangladesh Bhutan India Maldives Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka Southeast Asia Brunei Burma Cambodia East Timor Indonesia Laos Malaysia Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam Europe Eastern Europe Albania Bosnia & Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Kosovo Macedonia Montenegro Romania Serbia Central Europe Austria Czech Republic Germany Hungary Liechtenstein Poland Slovakia Slovenia Switzerland Iberian Peninsula Andorra Portugal Spain Scandinavia and Baltic Rim Denmark Estonia Finland Latvia Lithuania Norway Sweden Western Europe Belgium Cyprus France Greece Iceland Ireland Italy Luxembourg Malta Monaco Netherlands San Marino United Kingdom Vatican City Middle East and North Africa Algeria Bahrain Egypt Iran Iraq Israel Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Turkey United Arab Emirates Yemen Russia and Eurasia Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Moldova Russia Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan Sub-Saharan Africa Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros D.R. Congo Congo Côte d'Ivoire Djibouti Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda Säo Tomé & Príncipe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa South Sudan Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Togo Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe Governance Corruption Democracy Democracy promotion Disaster response Staff Elections European Union Health care institutions Health Care Reform Homeland Security Human Rights Information Technology Intelligence Institutions and Organizations International Law Kyoto Protocol Media Military NATO Negotiation Peacekeeping Nuclear policy Policy Analysis Rule of Law State-building World Bank World Trade Organization International Relations Agricultural trade Borders Business Diplomacy Foreign Aid Foreign Policy Globalization HIV/AIDS Investment Migration and Citizenship Protectionism Trade Health and Medicine Children's health Early Childhood Development Health Vision Care Comparative effectiveness research Diabetes Health policy Hypertension Hunger Disease Global Health Health and the Environment Health Care Health Outcomes Nutrition Obesity Population health Public Health Smoking International Development In the Classroom Technology Agriculture policy Cleantech Economic Affairs Education Entrepreneurship Food Markets Food Security Innovation Poverty Science and Technology Security Arms Control Arms Smuggling Biosecurity Bioterrorism Civil Wars Conflict Crime Cybersecurity Drug trafficking Kidnapping Missiles Nuclear Risk Nuclear Safety Terrorism Torture convention Violence Energy Biofuels Cap and Trade Coal Electricity Energy and Climate Policy Energy Infrastructure Energy Services Fossil Fuels Natural gas Nuclear Energy Natural gas Renewable Resources Oil Water Environment Palm Oil Agriculture Aquaculture Climate Climate change Deforestation Fisheries Natural Resources Sustainable development Society Aging Inclusion and Exclusion Inequality Migration Migration and Citizenship Race SAI Culture Demographics Discrimination Ethnicity Gender History Islam Religion Abstracts Blogs Books Book Chapters Case Studies Conference Memos Commentary Dissertations Journal Articles News Policy Briefs Q&As Testimonies White Papers Reports Working Papers Annual Reports Brochures Newsletters Prashant Loyalka

Journal Articles

The Concept of Public Goods, the State, and Higher Education Finance: A View from the BRICs

Martin Carnoy , Isak Froumin , Prashant Loyalka , Jandhyala B. G. Tilak

Higher Education, 2014 February 25, 2014

Because higher education serves both public and private interests, the way it is conceived and financed is contested politically, appearing in different forms in different societies. What is public and private in education is a political–social construct, subject to various political forces, primarily interpreted through the prism of the state. Mediated through the state, this construct can change over time as the economic and social context of higher education changes. In this paper, we analyze through the state’s financing of higher education how it changes as a public/private good and the forces that impinge on states to influence such changes. To illustrate our arguments, we discuss trends in higher education financing in the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China. We show that in addition to increased privatization of higher education financing, BRIC states are increasingly differentiating the financing of elite and non-elite institutions.

International Development Education Society Education Journal Articles

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Journal Articles

The Cost of Disability in China

Prashant Loyalka, Lan Liu, Gong Chen, Xiaoying Zheng

Demography, 2014 February 1, 2014

We describe the degree to which household income is negatively associated with the prevalence of different types of disability (i.e. medical impairments) in China using data from the 2006 China National Sample Survey of Disabled Persons. We then calculate the extra costs of disability across different types of households and show how these costs differ by the type and severity of disability in both urban and rural areas. We finally use nationally-representative panel data on persons with disabilities from 2007 to 2009 to examine the degree to which social security measures are reaching persons with different types and severity of disabilities in both urban and rural areas. We conclude that while social assistance and insurance for households with disabilities is increasing rapidly over time, it is still not enough to offset the income differential between households with and without disabled persons, especially when accounting for the extra costs of living associated with disability.

Health Health policy Health Care Public Health International Development Economic Affairs Journal Articles

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Journal Articles

How Are Secondary Vocational Schools in China Measuring up to Government Benchmarks?

Hongmei Yi, Linxiu Zhang, Chengfang Liu, James Chu, Prashant Loyalka, May Maani, Jianguo Wei

China & World Economy, 2013 December 31, 2013

Drawing on a survey of 106 secondary vocational schools and 7309 students in two provinces of China, this descriptive paper assesses whether vocational schooling is measuring up to government benchmarks for quality and whether poor students are able to access quality schools. We find that secondary vocational schools have met government benchmarks for teacher qualification and training, student opportunities for practical training and adequate facilities. Furthermore, poor students access schools of similar quality to non-poor students, even though 34 percent of poor students do not receive financial aid. We conclude that recent policies are successfully ensuring secondary vocational school quality and equity of access to school quality between poor and non-poor students. However, financial aid policies should be re-examined, such that poor students receive sufficient coverage. Moreover, given that input-based measures only proxy school quality, the government should consider holding schools accountable for outcomes such as student learning.

Policy Analysis International Development In the Classroom Education Education Journal Articles

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Journal Articles

University Expansion in the BRIC Countries and the Global Information Economy

Martin Carnoy, Prashant Loyalka, Isak Froumin

Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 2013 August 1, 2013

Can the BRIC university systems greatly increase the quantity of graduates in these developing countries and simultaneously achieve high enough quality to compete successfully at the higher end of the global knowledge economy?

Policy Analysis International Development Technology Education Innovation Education Journal Articles

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Books

University Expansion in a Changing Global Economy: Triumph of the BRICs?

Martin Carnoy, Prashant Loyalka, Maria Dobryakova, Rafiq Dossani, Isak Froumin, Katherine M. Kuhns, Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, Rong Wang

Stanford University Press, 2013 July 17, 2013

International Development Education Society Education Books

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Journal Articles

Can Information and Counseling Help Students from Poor Rural Areas Go To High School? Evidence from China

Prashant Loyalka, Chengfang Liu, Yingquan Song, Hongmei Yi, Xiaoting Huang, Jianguo Wei, Linxiu Zhang, Yaojiang Shi, James Chu, Scott Rozelle

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2013 June 21, 2013

Recent studies have shown that only about two-thirds of the students from poor, rural areas in China finish junior high school and enter high school. One factor that may be behind the low rates of high school attendance is that students may be misinformed about the returns to schooling or lack career planning skills. We therefore conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) using a sample of 131 junior high schools and more than 12,000 students to test the effects of providing information on returns or career planning skills on student dropout, academic achievement and plans to go to high school. Contrary to previous studies, we find that information does not have significant effects on student outcomes. Unlike information, counseling does have an effect. However, the effect is somewhat surprising. Our findings suggest that counseling increases dropouts and seems to lower academic achievement. In our analysis of the causal chain, we conclude that financial constraints and the poor quality of education in junior high schools in poor, rural areas (the venue of the study) may be contributing to the absence of positive impacts on student outcomes from information and counseling. The negative effects of counseling on dropout may also be due to the high and growing wages for unskilled labor (high opportunity costs) in China’s transitioning economy. It is possible that when our counseling curriculum informed the students about the reality of how difficult were the requirements for entering academic high school, it may have induced them to revise their benefit-cost calculations and come to the realization that they are better off dropping out and/or working less hard in school.

International Development In the Classroom Education Education Journal Articles

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Journal Articles

Information, College Decisions and Financial Aid: Evidence from a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in China

Prashant Loyalka, Yingquan Song, Jianguo Wei, Weiping Zhong, Scott Rozelle

Economics of Education Review, 2013 May 1, 2013

Past studies find that disadvantaged students in the United States are often misinformed about college costs and financial aid opportunities and thus may make sub-optimal decisions regarding college. This information problem may be even more serious in developing countries. We therefore conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial to examine the effects of providing information on college costs and financial aid to high school students in poor regions of northwest China. We find that information increases the likelihood that students receive some types of financial aid. Information also positively affects the choice to attend college but does not seem to affect more specific college choices.

International Development Economic Affairs Education Poverty Education Journal Articles

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Journal Articles

Impact of a Senior High School Tuition Relief Program on Poor Junior High School Students in Rural China

Xinxin Chen, Yaojiang Shi, Di Mo, James Chu, Prashant Loyalka, Scott Rozelle

China & World Economy, 2013 January 1, 2013

A significant gap remains between rural and urban students in the rate of admission to senior high school. One reason for this gap may be the high levels of tuition and fees for senior high school. By reducing student expectations of attending high school, high tuition and fees can reduce student academic performance in junior high school. In this paper we evaluate the impact of a senior high tuition relief program on the test scores of poor, rural seventh grade students in China.

International Development Economic Affairs Education Innovation Poverty Education Journal Articles

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Journal Articles

The Distribution of Financial Aid in China: Is Aid Reaching Poor Students?

Prashant Loyalka, Yingquan Song, Jianguo Wei

China Economic Review, 2012 December 1, 2012

China's central government incrementally introduced various kinds of student financial aid since the late 1990s in response to public concerns about the rising burden of college prices. Despite the marked increase in financial assistance from governmental as well as non-governmental sources in recent years especially, little is known about how well aid is currently distributed across Chinese universities and whether it is successfully reaching needy students. We use a unique randomly-sampled dataset of all local senior college students in one northwest province and a combination of non-parametric, semi-parametric and fixed effects methods to examine how various types of financial aid are currently distributed to students of different backgrounds across the university system. We also evaluate whether aid is reaching the main target population of low-income students. We primarily find that government-financed aid is allocated evenly across universities of varying selectivity and is reaching its target population of low-income students within universities. By contrast, university- and society-financed aid is not reaching low-income students. In addition, students in the most selective universities receive large implicit subsidies as they have high instructional costs, get more aid, and pay low tuition fees. Finally, a significant proportion of disadvantaged students do not seem to receive any type of aid.

International Development Education Science and Technology Society Education Journal Articles

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Journal Articles

The Effects of Attending Selective College Tiers in China

Prashant Loyalka, Yingquan Song, Jianguo Wei

Social Science Research, 2012 March 1, 2012

We estimate the effects of attending the first versus second-tier of higher education institutions on Chinese students’ at-college and expected post-college outcomes using various quasi-experimental methods such as regression discontinuity, genetic matching, and regression discontinuity controlling for covariates. Overall we find that just attending the first versus second-tier makes little difference in terms of students’ class ranking, net tuition, expected wages, or likelihood of applying for graduate school. The results do show, however, that just attending the first versus second tier makes it less likely that students will get their preferred major choice.

International Development Education Science and Technology Society Education Journal Articles

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Working Papers