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...

The Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) is a large scale social experiment being conducted in Canada to evaluate the effects of an earnings supplement (or subsidy) for long-term welfare recipients who find a full-time job and leave income assistance. The supplement is available to single parents who...

In this paper we compare the implications of a symmetric information contracting model and a dynamic labor supply model for changes in individual earnings and hours over time. The critical distinction between these models is whether earnings represent optimal consumption or payment for current...

When wage contracts are relatively short-lived, rent sharing may reduce the incentives for investment since some of the returns to sunk capital are captured by workers. In this paper we use a matched worker-firm data set from the Veneto region of Italy that combines Social Security earnings...

Immigration is often viewed as a proximate cause of the rising wage gap between high- and low-skilled workers. Nevertheless, there is controversy over the appropriate framework for measuring the presumed effect, and over the magnitudes involved. This paper offers an overview and synthesis of...

The lifecycle labor supply model has been proposed as an explanation for various dimensions of labor supply, including movements over the business cycle, changes with age, and within-person variation over time. According to the model, all of these elements are tied together by a combination of...