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REAP Featured on CNN's Think Like a Freak

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REAP's Gansu eyeglasses project was featured on CNN's Global Public Square, a program that invites international thinkers and leading journalists to discuss global issues .

When asked about his theory to "think small," Stephen Dubner, the co-author of "Think Like a Freak," said, "We write about these economists who wanted to help education like a lot of people do, and they were in China doing some research and they noticed something very small, which was that if you look at a class picture of these kids in Gang Su province in China, which is rural and poor generally, none of the kids were wearing glasses. And they thought well, that's either because they need them and they don't have them or there, you know, there's no myopia here. And so they did some tests and they found there was plenty of myopia, plenty of kids needed them, but they didn't have them.

"So, they thought let's run an experiment. Just take something as simple as providing free glasses. Half the kids they gave them to, the other half they left as a control group, they left them as is. And after one year, the kids who got the glasses were basically a full grade ahead. Does that solve the education problem? Of course not. But it's an example of how whoever is out there hearing this, whatever realm they're working on, if you peel off a small piece where you can actually get data, figure out what's going on, you can make some progress. I would rather have 100 smart people working on small versions of one big problem than 100 people shouting at each other about the big problem and getting nowhere."

Watch the full clip here.

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272- Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Southwestern China: Links to Cognitive Ability, Nutrition, and School Performance among Children

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Empirical evidence suggests that the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections in remote and poor rural areas is still high among children, the most vulnerable to infection. There is concern that STH infections may detrimentally affect children’s healthy development, including their cognitive ability, nutritional status, and school performance. Medical studies have not yet identified the exact nature of the impact STH infections have on children. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between STH infections and developmental outcomes in 2,180 school-aged children in seven nationally-designated poverty counties in rural China. We conducted a large-scale survey in Guizhou province in southwest China in May, 2013. Overall, 42 percent of elementary school-aged children were infected with one or more of the three types of STH—Ascarislumbricoides (ascaris), Trichuris trichuria (whipworm) and the hookworms Ancylostoma duodenaleor Necator americanus. After controlling for socioeconomic status, we observed that children infected with one or more STHs have worse cognitive ability, worse nutritional status, and worse school performance than their uninfected peers.

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Alexis Medina
Scott Rozelle

Jenny Bowen: What China’s Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains

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Jenny Bowen is the founder and chief executive officer of Half the Sky Foundation, which strives to enrich the lives of orphaned children in China. A former screenwriter and independent filmmaker, Bowen founded Half the Sky in 1998 in order to give something back to her adopted daughters’ home country and to the many children then languishing behind institutional walls. Half the Sky’s five innovative programs now provide nurturing, family-like care for thousands of children of all ages. In partnership with China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, Half the Sky has embarked on a groundbreaking Integrated National Training Plan that will eventually make the Half the Sky approach the approved national standard of care for all children in the welfare system.

In 2008, Bowen received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. She serves on China’s National Committee for Orphans and Disabled Children and on the Expert Consultative Committee for Beijing Normal University’s Philanthropy Research Institute. She is the author of the recently released memoir, Wish You Happy Forever: What China’s Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains.

About REAP

The Rural Education Action Program (REAP) at Stanford is an impact evaluation organization that aims to inform sound education, health and nutrition policy in China. REAP’s goal is to help students from vulnerable communities in China enhance their human capital and overcome obstacles to education so that they can escape poverty and better contribute to China’s developing economy.

The author will be available to sign copies of her book after the event.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Jenny Bowen Founder of Half the Sky Foundation Speaker

Scott Rozelle

Encina Hall East, E404
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
scott_rozelle_new_headshot.jpeg PhD

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.

His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.

Rozelle's papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Literature. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policymakers. For the past 20 years, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the University of California's Agricultural Issues Center; and a member of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.

In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.

Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions

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Faculty affiliate at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Faculty Affiliate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
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