This paper provides an empirical evaluation of true state dependence in welfare participation using unique administrative data from California that is measured at the monthly frequency, which coincides with the welfare eligibility period and so is free of time aggregation bias. The analysis uses...

Twenty-two million families currently receive a total of $34 billion dollars in benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). In fact, the EITC is the largest cash transfer program for lower-income families at the federal level. An unusual feature of the credit is its explicit goal to use...

Economists have strong theoretical predictions about how in-kind transfers, such as providing vouchers for food, impact consumption. Despite the prominence of the theory, there is little empirical work on responses to in-kind transfers, and most existing work fails to support the canonical...

This paper evaluates the health impacts of a signature initiative of the War on Poverty: the introduction of the modern Food Stamp Program (FSP). Using variation in the month FSP began operating in each U.S. county, we find that pregnancies exposed to FSP three months prior to birth yielded...