This paper presents a tour of welfare reforms in the UK since the last change of government, summarising the most important changes in active labour market policies (ALMPS), and in measures intended to strengthen financial incentives to work. It argues that developments in the UK’s active...

This study tests for a migration response to the implementation of stricter rules for welfare benefit receipt, in the form of mandatory participation in activation programs for welfare recipients, in Stockholm town districts. The hypothesis is that welfare benefit prone individuals will choose...

Despite being a very hot subject in the public debate, the causes behind the increase in social assistance (SA) in the 1990s are relatively unknown. In this paper, I try to investigate if the increase is in part a result of an increase in the propensity to receive SA. Despite what is usually...

In 1998 the Swedish national sickness insurance policy changed to allow additional compensation from e.g. collective agreements after the 90th day of absence without a reduction of the public sickness benefit. We estimate the effects of this policy change on the duration of sickness absence for...

We examine peer effects in welfare use among immigrants to Sweden by exploiting a governmental refugee placement policy. We distinguish between the quantity of contacts – the number of individuals of the same ethnicity – and the quality of contacts – welfare use among members of the ethnic...

This paper investigates whether mandatory activation programs for welfare receivers have effects on welfare participation, employment and disposable income. In contrast to earlier studies we are able to capture both entry and exit effects. The empirical analysis makes use of a Swedish welfare...