Does the supply of a welfare state create its own demand? Many economic scholars studying welfare arrangements refer to Say's law and insinuate a self-destructive welfare state. However, little is known about the empirical validity of these assumptions and hypotheses. We study the dynamic effect...

A model is set up where migrants must choose a level of social traits and consumption of ethnic goods. As the consumption level of ethnic goods increases, the migrants become ever more different to the local population and are less assimilated. Less assimilation affects the reaction of the local...

This paper studies a conditional block grant that Dutch municipalities receive for welfare-to-work programs. Many municipalities do not fully use this grant, although programs are beneficial for them. We argue that municipalities incur expenses to use the grant. If these costs are substantial,...

We study the political economy of policy innovations during the U.S. welfare reform in 1996. Specifically, we investigate how reputation concerns among governors influence the decision to experiment with welfare policies. In line with a political agency model, our empirical results suggest that...

Risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, drug use, unprotected sex, and poor diets and sedentary lifestyles (leading to obesity) are a major source of preventable deaths. This chapter overviews the theoretical frameworks for, and empirical evidence on, the economics of risky...

This paper investigates the links between family values, social needs and individual preferences for welfare using data from the 2005 French “Generation and Gender Survey” (GGS). We analyse individual preferences, for financial assistance and the provision of care services, with respect to...

The purpose in this paper is to summarize existing evidence on welfare dependence among immigrants in Denmark and to supply new evidence with focus on the most recent years. Focus is on immigrants from non-western countries. The paper contains an overview of the background regarding immigration...

There is a heated debate in many European countries about a move towards a welfare system that increases the incentives for lone mothers to move off welfare and into work. We analyze the consequences of a major Norwegian workfare reform of the generous welfare system for lone mothers. Our...

Redistribution across individuals in a one-year-period framework is an empirically intensely studied question. However, a substantial share of annual redistribution might turn out to serve individual insurance in a longer perspective, reducing the level of actual redistribution across...

This study contributes to the ongoing debate about welfare dependency centered on the western societies through an empirical analysis, within the context of a developing country. It examines state dependence in social assistance benefit receipt using longitudinal data from Turkey, where benefit...