Welfare-to-work measures are a central theme of Israel’s labour and social policies to tackle relative poverty, which is concentrated among the Arab-Israeli and Ultra-orthodox (Haredi) communities. Policies include pilot programmes involving private-sector job placement (the “Wisconsin”...

We report results from a large, randomized field to study how access to formal microinsurance affects production and economic development. We induce exogenous variation in insurance coverage at the village level by randomly assigning performance incentives to the village animal husbandry worker...

This paper shows that poor households’ entitlement to an exogenous, temporary, but guaranteed income stream increases Mexican migration to the United States, although this income is mainly consumed. Some households use the entitlement to this income stream as collateral to finance the...

The paper discusses the basic rationale which has inspired the intellectual re-orientation from «social protection» to «social investment», with particular attention to child policy. The first section outlines the main features of the social investment approach contrasting it with the more...

This report aims to outline the main trends in income distribution and poverty in Chile, as well as the role of social policy in these areas. The report includes five sections. First, it discusses recent trends in income inequality and poverty, including a brief overview of the data available in...

Despite intensive scrutiny, the effects of Medicaid expansions on the health insurance status of low-income children remain controversial. We reexamine the effects of the two largest federally mandated expansions which offered Medicaid coverage to low-income children in specific age ranges and...

This paper analyses differences in welfare utilization between immigrants and natives in Sweden using a large panel data set, LINDA, for the years 1990 to 1996. Both welfare expenditures and immigration increased substantially in Sweden in the 1990's. We find that immigrants use welfare to a...

Among the most important changes brought about by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is the imposition of time limits. In this paper, we analyze a simple model in which a potential welfare recipient chooses how to allocate her time-limited...