Any system of transfer payments must be administered by officials with some degree of discretionary power over the manner in which funds are allocated. Attitudes of such officials regarding the worthiness of various recipients therefore have implications for resource allocation. Using a sample...

We use an experimental field approach to understand better the pro-social preferences andbehavior of both individuals involved in the provision of social services (public servants) and the behavior of those potential beneficiaries, the poor. We conducted field experiments using the Dictator,...

While child welfare services of high quality are very important for many children, measuring quality is not a simple task. This paper presents a method for estimating differences in the quality of local child welfare services. We identify the contributions of municipalities to high school...

This paper presents a description of the new strategy for the fight against drugs implemented in Colombia since the year 2007. The Strategic Leap Forward, as the Colombian government has called the program, or the Strategic Development Initiative, as the United States Agency for International...

This paper analyzes the relationship between growth, poverty and income distribution using household data for Colombia for the years 1996 to 2004. We study the relationship between growth, inequality and poverty by following the Poverty Equivalent Growth Rate (PEGR) methodology developed by...

We develop and estimate a microeconometric model of household labour supply in five European countries representative of different economies and welfare policy regimes: Denmark, Italy, Norway, Portugal and United Kingdom. We then simulate, under the constraint of constant total net tax revenue,...

We address the issue of the relationship between couples’ parental leave practices and their workplace situation. This analysis is based on information from Norwegian administrative registers on around 200 000 couples, covering a period of almost 10 years. The most common practice among...

The generous Nordic model of welfare is commonly viewed as an exceptional success both in terms of equality and economic growth. However, it has recently become evident that subgroups of the population with weak labour market attachment and high welfare dependency, such as lone mothers, were...

I study the effects of the level of disability benefits on disability uptake. Estimation of such effects is difficult because individual levels of disability pension benefits are closely related to individual characteristics that may also affect disability uptake through other mechanisms. I...

This paper presents results from an evaluation of a Norwegian initiative to combat poverty launched in 2003. Central to the plan is a broad spectrum of rehabilitation and activation measures intended to help long-term social security recipients from welfare to work. We illuminate short-term...