May 2008 - Working Paper14038 This paper investigates the impact of changes in earnings disregards for welfare assistance received by single mothers following welfare reform in 1996. Some states adopted much higher earnings disregards (women could work full time and still receive welfare), while other states did not. We explore...
December 2007 - Working Paper13667 This paper investigates the response of young people in the United States to state laws dictating the minimum age at which individuals could marry, with and without parental consent. We use variation across states and over time to document behavioral responses to laws governing the age of marriage...
August 2006 - Working Paper12494 In contrast to less-skilled men, less-skilled women have experienced growing labor force involvement and moderate wage increases. Compared to more-skilled women, less-skilled women have fallen behind. We investigated the reasons behind these trends in labor force participation and wages for male and...
June 2002 - Working Paper8983 This paper reviews the economics literature on welfare reform over the 1990s. A brief summary of the policy changes over this period is followed by a discussion of the methodological techniques utilized to analyze the effects of these changes on outcomes. The paper then critically reviews the...
February 2002 - Working Paper8820 Economists tend to assume that redistributive transfers increase equity but cause a loss in efficiency, the so-called 'leaky bucket' effect. This paper explores situations where efficiency losses are small or where equity and efficiency might even complement each other. A simple model identifies key...
August 2001 - Working Paper8437 This paper examines the impact of Clinton era social policy changes on the poor. It explores shifts in incentives, behavior, and incomes and discusses the role Clinton did or did not play in influencing the policy mix and the nature of the political debate surrounding poverty. Policy changes...
March 2000 - Working Paper7627 This paper evaluates the effectiveness of recent welfare reforms, investigating the effects of both state-specific waivers in the early 1990s and the 1996 federal reform legislation. Unlike earlier work, we analyze a wide array of indicators, including welfare participation, labor market involvement...
April 1999 - Working Paper7099 The privatization of social services is being increasingly discussed. The social services market is characterized by multiple market failures, including informational asymmetries, agency problems, externalities, and distributional concerns. Consumers may care as much or more about quality of...
March 1999 - Working Paper6998 This paper investigates the impact of financial incentive programs, which have become an increasingly common component of welfare programs. We review experimental evidence from several such programs. Financial incentive programs appear to increase work and raise income (lower poverty), but cost...
December 1997 - Working Paper6343 This paper uses state panel data to investigate changes in public assistance caseloads. Compared to other research, it uses more extensive data, both across states and over time; it utilizes a particularly rich set of control variables; it investigates the different subcomponents of the AFDC program...
November 1994 - Working Paper4911 This paper uses 14 years of data from the PSID to explore dynamic labor supply choices among adult women between full-time, part-time, or no labor market work. A variety of models indicate that past choices should be important in predicting current labor supply choices. This paper compares the...
September 1994 - Working Paper4853 This paper uses data on abortion rates from 1974-88, to estimate two-stage least squares models with fixed state and year effects. The results indicate that implementing restrictions on Medicaid funding for abortion results in lower aggregate abortion rates in-state and higher abortion rates among...
January 1, 1994 - Chapter
January 1, 1994 - Chapter
January 1, 1994 - Chapter
January 1, 1994 - Book - Conference Volume
As the Clinton administration considers major overhauls in health insurance, welfare, and labor market regulation, it is important for economists and policymakers to understand the impact of social and welfare programs on employment rates. This volume explores how programs such as social security,...
August 1993 - Working Paper4429 This paper investigates dynamic patterns in the relationship between eligibility and participation in the AFDC and food stamp programs, using monthly longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. The results indicate that the majority of eligibility spells are relatively...
April 1993 - Working Paper4338 Over the last 10 years, a variety of analysts have blamed high unemployment and stagnant economic growth in Europe on inflexible labor markets and pointed to the US as a more flexible economy, due to its less regulated labor markets and less generous social protection programs. This paper reviews...
April 1993 - Working Paper4339 This paper investigates whether a larger public sector limits labor market adjustment, using data from the United States and the United Kingdom, two countries with quite different public/private employment trends. The results indicate that the two countries have a similar mix of occupations and...
January 1, 1993 - Chapter
October 1991 - Working Paper3878 This paper explores the relationship between the macroeconomy and the poverty rate. The first section provides evidence that poverty was far less responsive to macroeconomic growth in the 1980s than it had been in earlier decades. The section explores and rejects four reasons for this: It is not due...
October 1990 - Working Paper3462 This paper documents the striking difference in U. S. and Canadian poverty trends from 1970 to 1986. While U.S. poverty has shown no consistent trend since 1970, Canadian poverty decreased by 60%. This paper examines why U. S. and Canadian poverty trends differed during two periods: 1970-1979 and...
March 1989 - Working Paper2871 This paper presents new evidence on the reasons for the recent decline in the fraction of unemployed workers who receive unemployment insurance benefits. Using samples of unemployed workers from the March Current Population Survey, we estimate the fraction of unemployed workers who are potentially...
March 1989 - Working Paper2886 In this paper we examine the trends in housing conditions among the urban poor over the last decade, relate these trends to the economic environments of the cities, and compare the poor to other income groups. We find that there has been a substantial decrease in "housing independence" -- among the...
October 1987 - Working Paper2396 This paper investigates cyclicality in real wages between 1969 and 1982, using 14 years of data from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics. First, it investigates the extent to which movements in and out of the labor market created apparent wage cyclicality. Second, it investigates whether cyclical...
October 1987 - Working Paper2397 This paper disaggregates total household income into a complete set of components and studies the comparative cyclicality of these components to economic growth. Comparisons of the relative responsiveness to GNP growth of wages, hours of work, and total labor market income of heads and wives, and...
September 1986 - Working Paper2026 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 data on time spent in the AFDC program among female...
February 1985 - Working Paper1567 This paper investigates the impacts of macroeconomic activity and policy on the poverty population. It is shown that both the poverty count and the income share of the lowest quintile of income recipients move significantly with the business cycle. The differential impact of inflation versus...