This paper is prepared as a chapter for the Handbook of Income Distribution, Volume 2 (edited by A. B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, Elsevier-North Holland, forthcoming). Like the other chapters in the volume (and its predecessor), the aim is to provide a comprehensive review of a particular area...

Social programs are often designed under the assumption that individuals make rational decisions that improve their welfare. Yet, informational and behavioral constraints limit the extreme and chronic poor’s access and participation in social programs. This paper reviews the implementation and...

In Southern Europe youngsters leave the parental home significantly later than in Northern Europe and United States. Policies have been implemented in Southern Europe to incentivize young adults to leave parental home earlier. Do peer effects among siblings amplify the effects of these policies?...

Local beer breweries in Burkina Faso absorb a considerable amount of urban woodfuel demand. We assess the woodfuel savings caused by the adoption of improved brewing stoves by these, mostly female owned, small enterprises and estimate the implied welfare effects through the woodfuel market on...

Subjective expectations are fundamental for understanding individual behavior. Yet, little is known about how individuals use new information to formulate and update their subjective expectations. In this study, we exploit data from a multi-treatment field experiment to investigate how...

This paper analyzes the effects of training quality on the likelihood of treatment completion by estimating dose-response functions via a generalized propensity score. Results show a statistically positive relationship between training quality and treatment completion for youth participants in Peru.

This study investigates the causal impacts of integrating mobile phone technologies into traditional public labor-market intermediation services on employment outcomes. By providing faster, cheaper and up-to-date information on job vacancies via SMS, mobile phone technologies might affect the...

This study investigates the effect of the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program on children's health outcomes using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) over the period 1994 to 2005. The TANF policies have been credited with increased employment for single...

The current EU Asylum policy is widely seen as ineffective and unfair. We propose an EU-wide market for tradable quotas on both refugees and asylum-seekers coupled with a matching mechanism linking countries' and migrants' preferences. We show that the proposed system can go a long way towards...

This study explores the hypothesis that high home-ownership damages the labor market. We show that rises in the home-ownership rate in a U.S. state are a precursor to eventual sharp rises in unemployment in that state. The elasticity exceeds unity: a doubling of the rate of home-ownership in a...