We study the effect of welfare reform, broadly defined to include social policy changes in the 1990s, on the material well-being and expenditure patterns of poor single-mother families. Our research suggests that welfare reform did not affect total expenditures in households headed by...

We study the effect of a recent expansion in India's National Old Age Pension Scheme on elderly well-being. Estimates suggest that public pension has a modestly negative effect on the employment of elderly/near elderly men with a primary or lower education but no effect of the employment of...

I use changes in immigrant eligibility for food stamps under the 1996 federal law and heterogeneous state responses to set up a natural experiment research design to study the effect of food stamps on Body Mass Index (BMI) of adults in immigrant families. I find that in the post-1996 period food...

We study the effect of the Food Stamp Program (FSP) on consumption patterns in families headed by low-educated single mothers in the U.S. using the Consumer Expenditure Surveys for 1994-2004. Our analysis suggests that the food stamp caseload does not have any statistically significant...

We study whether welfare reform adversely affected the health insurance coverage of low-educated single mothers and their children. Specifically, we investigate whether changes in the welfare caseload during the 1990s were associated with changes in Medicaid participation, private insurance...

We study the effect on nutrition of an exogenous increase in food grain subsidy in rural India resulting from a program targeting the poor. Our analysis suggests that increase in income resulting from the food price subsidy changed consumption patterns in favor of the subsidized grains and...