TY  - JOUR
AU  - Milligan,Kevin
AU  - Stabile,Mark
TI  - The Integration of Child Tax Credits and Welfare: Evidence from the National Child Benefit Program
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10968
PY  - 2004
Y2  - December 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10968
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10968.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kevin S. Milligan
Department of Economics
University of British Columbia
#997-1873 East Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
CANADA
Tel: 604/822-6747
Fax: 604/822-5915
E-Mail: kevin.milligan@ubc.ca

Mark Stabile
School of Public Policy and Governance
University of Toronto
Canadiana Building, 3rd Floor
14 Queen's Park Cres. W.
Toronto, ON M5S 3K9
CANADA
Tel: 416/978-4329
Fax: 416/978-5079
E-Mail: mark.stabile@utoronto.ca
AB  - In 1998, the Canadian government introduced a new child tax credit. The innovation in the program was its integration with social assistance (welfare). Some provinces agreed to subtract the new federally-paid benefits from provincially-paid social assistance, partially lowering the welfare wall. Three provinces did not integrate benefits, providing a quasi-experimental framework for estimation. We find large changes in social assistance take-up and employment in provinces that provided the labour market incentives to do so. In our sample, the integration of benefits can account for around one third of the total decline in social assistance receipt between 1997 and 2000.
ER  -