This paper investigates the feasibility of measuring the efficacy of programs designed to move welfare recipients into jobs using administrative records on individual program participation linked with state records on individual earnings. Like many states, Missouri collects quarterly earnings...

This study provides a comprehensive examination of the work and family structure incentives of public assistance, focusing on the consequences of state-determined programs. Such an approach allows state policy- makers to understand the tradeoffs implicit in their current program parameters. It...

The aim of this paper is to test if electoral systems and human development are linked. Using high quality data and very simple panel data econometric techniques, we show that electoral systems play a critical role in explaining the difference in the levels of human development between...

The recent reform of the federal welfare system is meant to encourage recipients to leave welfare and enter the workforce. If the reform is successful there are likely to be effects felt throughout the low-- skilled end of the labor market. As former welfare recipients enter the labor market,...

Public opinion surveys conducted since 1977 in Japan are usually interpreted as showing decreasing support among the Japanese population for Official Development Assistance (ODA), and possibly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cabinet Office of Japan have justified recent cuts in ODA...

This paper studies the effects of different levels of social insurance on efficiency and distribution of resources in a general equilibrium model of a closed economy with heterogeneous agents and moral hazard. I compare optimal allocations of capital, labor supply, and consumption in stationary...

This paper provides an overview of the analysis of the indirect effects of active labour market policies. Indirect effects arise where some of the improved labour market outcomes for programme participants come at the expense of other workers or jobseekers. The paper outlines some common...

A central prediction of the quasi-hyperbolic model of time preference is that consumers will be impatient over short-run tradeoffs. I present the first nonlaboratory test of this implication using data on the nutritional intake of food stamp recipients. Caloric intake declines by 10 to 15...

This paper contributes to providing insights into the impact of decentralisation on poverty. It starts out with an overview of which role decentralisation plays in strategies and policies for poverty eradication and derives economic and political impact channels. It concentrates on the economic...

It has been noted that failure to meet the target set by government for reducing the head count ratio of child poverty in Britain is partly due to the success of government policy in generating economic growth. Apart from missing the argument that absolute poverty is not a meaningful idea, this...