This paper reviews the basic theoretical models that are appropriate for analyzing different types of welfare reforms, and the related empirical literature. We first present the canonical labor supply model of a classical welfare program, and then extend this basic framework to include in-kind...

The 1996 PRWORA reform introduced time limits on the receipt of welfare in the United States. We use variation by state and across demographic groups to provide reduced form evidence showing that such limits led to a fall in welfare claims (partly due to "banking" benefits for future use), a...

We develop a method for estimating the effect of a kinked or notched budget set on workers' employment decisions, and we use it to estimate the impact of the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Annual Earnings Test (AET). The AET reduces OASI claimants' current OASI benefits...

The income elasticity of labor supply is a central parameter of many economic models. We test how labor supply and effort in northern Ghana respond to exogenous changes in income and wages using a randomized evaluation of a multi-faceted grant program combined with a bag-making operation. We...

Using annual, repeated cross-sections from national household survey data, we estimate how the January 1997 termination of federal disability insurance, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Disability Insurance (DI), for those with Drug Addiction and Alcoholism affected labor market outcomes...

Targeting is a core element of anti-poverty program design, with benefits typically targeted to those most "deprived" in some sense (e.g., consumption, wealth). A large literature in economics examines how to best identify these households feasibly at scale, usually via proxy means tests (PMTs)....

Households spent only a small fraction of their 2020 Economic Impact Payment (EIPs) within a couple of months of arrival, consistent with i) pandemic constraints on spending, ii) other pandemic programs and social insurance, and iii) the broader disbursement of the EIPs compared to the economic...

Little is known about the extent and drivers of information flow within couples, and whether spouses hold aligned expectations about the same outcomes. To provide new evidence, we conduct an online survey of 2,200 middle-aged married couples in the US. Our focus is on expectations about Social...

This paper reports new evidence that giving financial rewards for adopting a child from foster care or becoming a kin guardian improves the later school performance of these children. It uses linked administrative data to examine a policy change in Minnesota. This change increased the payments...

College-educated mothers spend substantially more time in intensive childcare than less educated mothers despite their higher opportunity cost of time and working more hours. Using data from the 2010-2013 and 2021 waves of the Well-being Module of the American Time Use Survey, we investigate...