In Britain the government is currently proposing legislation that will encourage welfare recipients to gain employment. A central tenet of this 'welfare to work' policy is that employment will not only reduce the poverty of welfare recipients, but also improve their health. This research...

A new book argues that we coddle the well-off in America. It's free markets for the rest of us. The author discusses the issues in this interview.

Productivity growth is the main long-run determinant of living standards. However, there are some distinctions between productivity growth as conventionally measured and the potential of the economy to raise living standards. Specifically, insofar as the share of depreciation in output...

This report examines one major source of bias in the yearly Current Population Survey -- nonresponse rates. It shows evidence of systematic undercounting due to the disproportionately high nonresponse rate from individuals who are less likely to be employed than the general population.

This report uses the past three recessions of the early 1980s, early 1990s and early 2000s to project the effects of a recession in 2008. The report finds that such a recession would result in a significant rise in unemployment and the poverty rate along with a significant decrease in the...

The Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) was passed in 2003 to reform the Medicare system, but the result was an inefficient set of rules and regulations. This report projects the savings from a drug benefit program that was designed with efficiency in mind.

This report shows that official estimates of the number of Americans living in poverty and without health insurance may substantially underestimate the true number of poor and uninsured.

This report analyzes recent proposals suggesting that the government buy up or guarantee bad mortgage debt in an attempt to slow the increasing number of foreclosures the nation has seen in the wake of the housing market's meltdown. The study, which focuses on the plan put forth by the Office of...

Defined benefit pensions are still an important part of retirement income security for 44 million people. After 2000, these plans experienced extreme difficulties. Although the magnitude of the problem was unprecedented, its causes were not. Interest rate and asset prices decline in a recession,...

This paper examines the viability of security transaction excise taxes (STETs) as one policy tool for promoting a more stable financial environment, specifically with respect to the U.S. economy. Contrary to a large recent critical literature, we show that a STET can be designed without creating...