We examine the economy-wide impact of the child support grant (CSG) on the South African economy using a bottom-up/top-down approach. This allows us to estimate the potential effects on households’ welfare and on the economy following a change in the CSG. Three simulations are presented, in...

We propose simple graphical methods to identify poverty-reducing transfer program reforms. The methods are based on Program Dominance curves that display cumulative program benefits weighted by powers of poverty gaps. These curves can be decomposed simply as sums of targeting dominance curves...

This paper suggests a methodology to identify socially-desirable directions for poverty-alleviating tax reforms. The cost-benefit ratio of increasing any commodity-tax rate is derived from the minimization of a poverty measure subject to a revenue requirement for the government. Further, to...

This paper describes the effects of general food subsidies on poverty in Tunisia, as revealed by household survey data for 1990. The analysis indicates that the poorest certainly take advantage of this system, but at the price of considerable leakages to non-poor people and at a sizeable...

The value of a statistical life (VSL) is a very controversial topic, but one which is essential to the optimization of governmental decisions. Indeed, our society faces any number of risks (health, transportation, work, etc.) and, as resources are limited, their complete elimination is...

This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of participation in Québec's social assistance program. The analysis takes into account two sources of intergenerational transmission: one that is due to a causal link between parents' and children's participation and one that is due to a...

We propose simple graphical methods to identify poverty-reducing marginal reforms of transfer programs. The methods are based on Program Dominance curves that display cumulative program benefits weighted by powers of poverty gaps. These curves can be decomposed simply as sums of targeting...

The evaluation of the impact on poverty of social programs depends on how other programs are treated in the analysis and on the assumptions used for estimating poverty measures. This paper applies a simple yet sound method for allocating between various programs the total poverty reduction...

The evaluation of the poverty impact and targeting performance of a given social program may depend on how other programs are treated in the analysis.Using well-known results from cooperative game theory, this paper proposes an empirically simple yet theoretically sound method for allocating...

We propose a general cost-of-inequality approach that jointly integrates horizontal and vertical equity criteria in the assessment of poverty alleviation programs, with the strength of each criterion being captured through its own inequity-aversion parameter. This contrasts with the assessment...