workfare scheme in which the government acts as the employer of last resort. Is this a cost-effective policy against poverty … sufficient for a typical poor family to reach the poverty line would bring the annual poverty rate down from 34 percent to 25 … (three months) would bring the annual poverty rate down to 31 percent at a cost of 1.3 percent of GDP. While the gains from a …

not only increasing incomes and reducing poverty, but appears as well to be breaking down long-standing barriers to … diversification could thus yield significant returns in terms of declining poverty and increased income mobility. The evidence from …

-targeting transfers to poor people. This incentive argument does not imply, however, that workfare is more cost-effective against poverty … that for the same budget, workfare has less impact on poverty than either a basic-income scheme (providing the same … transfer to all) or uniform transfers based on the government's below-poverty-line ration cards. For workfare to dominate other …