Children represent the largest indirect beneficiaries of the U.S. social welfare system. Yet, many questions remain about the direct benefits of cash aid to children. The current understanding of the impacts of cash aid in the U.S. is drawn primarily from studies of in-kind benefits, tax...

We examine the effects of an unconditional cash transfer on the economic wellbeing (material hardship, ability to meet needs, money on hand, use of friends and family for assistance, and employment) of families and children with very low incomes. We use a parameterized difference-in-differences...

We provide new evidence that cash transfers following the birth of a first child can have large and long-lasting effects on that child's outcomes. We take advantage of the January 1 birthdate cutoff for U.S. child-related tax benefits, which results in families of otherwise similar children...

We compare the distributional effects of policy changes introduced in the period 2008-2013 in twelve EU countries using the EU microsimulation model EUROMOD. The countries, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania and the UK, chose different...

The financial and economic crisis which started in the late 2000s and the fiscal consolidation measures to counter the subsequent government budget deficits have an impact on household income distribution and macroeconomic recovery. We consider the austerity measures in relation to their...

The at-risk-of-poverty rate is one of the three indicators used for monitoring progress towards the Europe 2020 poverty and social exclusion reduction target. Timeliness of this indicator is critical for monitoring the effectiveness of policies. However, due in part to the complicated nature of...

Development of the social dimension of Europe was advanced by the Lisbon Summit in March 2000, and this paper considers the future direction of social policy. The first step towards a social agenda could take the form of benchmarking, based on national competencies in this field, with Member...

As unemployment rises across the European Union (EU) it is important to understand the extent to which the incomes of the new unemployed are protected by tax-benefit systems and to assess the cost pressures on the social protection systems of this increase in unemployment. This paper uses the EU...

We propose a new measure of the rate of poverty we call the Supplemental Expenditure Poverty Measure (SEPM) based on expenditure in the Consumer Expenditure survey. It treats household expenditure as a measure of resources available to purchase the minimum bundle necessary to meet basic needs....

Burnout of physicians and other medical personnel is a major problem in the economics of healthcare systems, potentially costing billions of dollars. Knowledge of the determinants and costs of burnout at the organization level is sparse, making it difficult to assess the net benefits of...