This paper uses data from the American Life Panel to understand the determinants of well-being in the United States during the Great Recession. It investigates how various dimensions of subjective wellbeing reflected in the OECD Better Life Framework impact subjective well-being. The results...

Life is quite good in the United States compared to other OECD countries, thanks to strong economic growth and technological progress having lifted average income to high levels. Nonetheless, there is evidence that the benefits from growth have not been sufficiently broad based. Self-reported...

In 1994, the OECD published a set of recommendations -- known as the OECD Jobs Strategy -- to deal with high and persistent unemployment that affected many member countries. These recommendations are currently being reassessed by the OECD and this paper contributes to this process. It provides a...

Australia faces the mutually reinforced challenges of boosting labour supply and promoting social inclusion. Labour underutilisation is especially prevalent among groups such as lone parents, people with disability, and Indigenous Australians. These are also groups at greatest risk of social...

This paper explores the role played by policy instruments in access to housing finance by low-income households. It also analyzes the impact of housing credit and subsidies on both the quality of life and the quality of dwelling of the beneficiaries. Using the Quality of Life Surveys conducted...

This paper assesses the effects of different health conditions on happiness. Based on a large data set for Latin America, the effects of different conditions are examined across age, gender, and income cohorts. Anxiety and pain have stronger effects than physical problems, likely because people...

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”...

Recent empirical evidence has indicated that Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) do not have an aggregate effect on adult labour supply, however little attention has been paid to the role of other intrahousehold dynamics. This paper examines how the bargaining power structure of households affects...

En este trabajo estudiamos los efectos indirectos del mayor programa de transferencias condicionadas (PTC) de Colombia, Familias en Acción, sobre los niveles de criminalidad en el área urbana de la ciudad de Bogotá. Para realizar este estudio combinamos las siguientes dos fuentes de...

This paper analyzes the correlation between the expansion of the Mexican Conditional Cash Transfer program Oportunidades and the evolution of the labor market over the period 2000-10. We find no evidence of perverse effects. Program expansion was not associated with drops in either labor force...