We study one aspect of the link between welfare and unwed motherhood: the relationship between benefit levels and the … generate effectively random variation in welfare benefits among mothers within a state, which allows us to control for … unobservable characteristics of states that typically confound the relationship between welfare payments and behavior. The twins …

This paper develops a theoretical model of welfare dependence, in which current participation in AFDC induces greater … future use of the program. One prediction is duration dependence in welfare spells. This is tested using 6 years of monthly … months. There is some indication that there are two distinct groups that utilize welfare: one group, which has a very low …

This paper uses data from the 1970, 1980 and 1990 Censuses to investigate the impact of welfare benefits across … factors that could influence both welfare benefit levels and family formation. In such a model, we find no effect of welfare … benefits on single motherhood for whites or blacks, and a positive effect of welfare benefits on single headship only for …

randomized trial of a welfare-to-work alternative to AFDC), I show that GAIN first-order stochastically dominates AFDC when …

Although there is a large literature on the effect of AFDC and Food Stamps on labor supply and welfare participation … and welfare participation decisions of female heads of family. A key contribution is the development of a family … that Medicaid has strong and significant effects on labor supply and welfare participation that are negative and positive …