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Reproducibility package for Luck of the Draw: The Causal Effect of Physicians on Birth Outcomes

2024
Get Reproducibility Package
Reference ID
PP_COL_2024_183
Author(s)
Christian Posso, Jorge Tamayo, Arlen Guarin, Estefania Saravia
Collections
Journal articles
Metadata
JSON
Created on
May 08, 2025
Last modified
May 08, 2025
  • Overview
  • Reproducibility Package
  • Description
  • Scope and coverage
  • Disclaimer
  • Access and rights
  • Contacts
  • Information on metadata

    • Overview

    Abstract

    We estimate the effect on birth outcomes of a mother’s being treated by more-skilled versus less-skilled physicians by exploiting a Colombian government program that randomly assigned newly graduated physicians to local health centers (LHCs). We estimate the impact on 255,089 children whose mothers received care in those LHCs using administrative data from the program, LHCs’ vital statistics records, and records from physicians’ mandatory graduation exams. We find that mothers treated at an LHC with more-skilled physicians were 9.14 percent less likely to give birth to an unhealthy baby, potentially because more-skilled physicians better target care toward more-vulnerable mothers.

    Reproducibility Package

    Scripts
    Get Reproducibility Package
    Title
    Reproducibility package (code) for Luck of the Draw: The Causal Effect of Physicians on Birth Outcomes
    Date
    2024-12
    Dependencies
    All dependencies are included in the folder "Code/Data/ado".
    Notes
    Computational reproducibility verified by Development Impact (DIME) Analytics team, World Bank.
    Source code repository
    Repository name URI
    Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank) https://reproducibility.worldbank.org
    Software
    Name
    Stata
    Version
    17 MP

    Reproducibility

    Technology environment

    Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:
    – OS: Windows 10 Enterprise
    – Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4208 CPU @ 2.10GHz
    – Memory available: 128 GB
    – Software version: Stata 17 MP-Parallel edition
    Technology requirements

    Runtime: 30 hours
    Reproduction instructions

    Users need to gain access to the data, add the global root in line 4 of the the do-file "Do_master", run it, and run the R script "Figure A.2 Heatmap.R" to reproduce the results.

    Data

    Datasets
    Name
    Reports with local health center physician random assignments for Colombia
    Note
    Source: Colombia Ministry of Health. The team was provided with in-place data access for this research. Anonymized information in this dataset is available in the data URL, though this code can only run on the full data that the authors had access to. Data was accessed in June 2018.
    Access policy
    Data is restricted and not included in the reproducibility package.
    Data URL
    https://www.minsalud.gov.co/Paginas/Videoconferencia-asignacion-plazas-servicio-social-obligatorio-2013.aspx
    Name
    SABER PRO - Physicians' medical test scores and demographic information for Colombia
    Note
    Source: Colombian Institute for Educational Evaluation (ICFES). The team was provided with in-place data access for this research. Test scores contained in this dataset are available in the data URL for Colombian nationals, though this code can only run on the full data that the authors had access to. Data was accessed in May 2019.
    Access policy
    Data is restricted and not included in the reproducibility package.
    Data URL
    https://www.icfes.gov.co/evaluaciones-icfes/resultados/
    Name
    Colombia Vital Statistics Records (VSR)
    Note
    Source: Colombia Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE). The team was provided with in-place data access for this research. An anonymized and reduced version of the data is available in the data URL (see the datasets named "Estadisticas Vitales" from 1998 to 2018), though this code can only run on the full data that the authors had access to. Data was accessed in July 2020.
    Access policy
    Data is restricted and not included in the reproducibility package.
    Data URL
    https://microdatos.dane.gov.co/index.php/catalog/DEM-Microdatos
    Name
    Colombia National Census of 2005
    Note
    Source: Colombia Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE). An identified version of the public dataset was used. The team was provided with in-place data access for this research. An anonymized and reduced version of the data is available in the data URL, though this code can only run on the full data that the authors had access to. Data was accessed in October 2020.
    Access policy
    Data is restricted and not included in the reproducibility package.
    Data URL
    https://microdatos.dane.gov.co/index.php/catalog/421
    Name
    Colombia National Registry of Human Resources in Health (ReTHUS)
    Note
    Source: Colombia Ministry of Health. The team was provided with in-place data access for this research. Data is available for access by contacting the Directorate of Human Talent at the Ministry of Health of Colombia. Information of this dataset is available for individual queries in this URL: https://www.sispro.gov.co/central-prestadores-de-servicios/Pages/ReTHUS-Registro-de-Talento-Humano-en-Salud.aspx. Data was accessed in July 2022.
    Access policy
    Data is restricted and not included in the reproducibility package.
    Name
    Colombia Municipalities
    Note
    Source: Colombia Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE).
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package. Data was accessed in XXXX.
    License URL
    https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/servicios-al-ciudadano/tramites/transparencia-y-acceso-a-la-informacion-publica/terminos-y-condiciones
    Data URL
    https://geoportal.dane.gov.co/servicios/descarga-y-metadatos/datos-geoestadisticos/
    Name
    Colombia Universities Accreditation Information
    Note
    Source: Colombia Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE).
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package. Data was accessed in XXXX.
    License URL
    https://www.mineducacion.gov.co/portal/secciones/Terminos-y-condiciones/
    Data URL
    https://hecaa.mineducacion.gov.co/consultaspublicas/programas
    Data statement

    All data is restricted and has not been included in the reproducibility package. For more details, please refer to the README file.

    Description

    Output
    Type
    Published paper
    Title
    Luck of the Draw: The Causal Effect of Physicians on Birth Outcomes
    Authors
    Author Affiliation Email
    Christian Posso Banco de la República de Colombia cpossosu@banrep.gov.co
    Jorge Tamayo Harvard University, Harvard Business School, Digital Reskilling Lab jtamayo@hbs.edu
    Arlen Guarin World Bank aguarin@worldbank.org
    Estefania Saravia University of California, Los Angeles esaravia@ucla.edu
    Date of production

    2024-12

    Scope and coverage

    Geographic locations
    Location Code
    Colombia COL
    Keywords
    Physicians’ skills birth outcomes experimental evidence
    Topics
    ID Topic Parent topic ID Vocabulary Vocabulary URI
    H51 Government Expenditures and Health H5 Journal of Economic Literature
    I14 Health and Inequality I1 Journal of Economic Literature
    I15 Health and Economic Development I1 Journal of Economic Literature
    I18 Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health I1 Journal of Economic Literature

    Disclaimer

    Disclaimer

    The materials in the reproducibility packages are distributed as they were prepared by the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials included in the reproducibility package.

    Access and rights

    License
    Name URI
    Modified BSD3 https://opensource.org/license/bsd-3-clause/

    Contacts

    Contacts
    Name Affiliation Email
    Arlen Guarin World Bank aguarin@worldbank.org
    Reproducibility WBG World Bank reproducibility@worldbank.org

    Information on metadata

    Producers
    Name Abbreviation Affiliation Role
    Reproducibility WBG DIME World Bank - Development Impact Department Verification and preparation of metadata
    Date of Production

    2024-12-09
    Document version

    1
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