The probability of income loss depends on talent and effort. Effort has positive externalities and therefore individuals are proportion to their perceived diligence. The social norm requires more effort from individuals perceived as more talented, but talent is private information and...

In 1998 the Swedish national sickness insurance policy changed to allow additional compensation from e.g. collective agreements after the 90th day of absence without a reduction of the public sickness benefit. We estimate the effects of this policy change on the duration of sickness absence for...

This paper studies interrelations between two benefits in the Swedish social insurance system: the sickness insurance and the temporary parental benefit. The level of compensation differs between the two benefits creating an economic incentive for parents to claim temporary parental benefit when...

We consider a life-cycle model with idiosyncratic risk in labor earnings, out-of-pocket medical and nursing home expenses, and survival. Partial insurance is available through welfare, Medicaid, and social security. Calibrating the model to the United States, we find that 12 percent of aggregate...

The goal of this research is to quantify the association between food insecurity and smoking among low-income families. This analysis is a retrospective study using data from the 2001 Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a longitudinal study of a representative sample of U.S. men, women, and children...

In this paper we propose a method to estimate externality effects in cash transfer programmes, even in cases when the benefit is not randomly assigned. Externality is assessed through the decomposition of the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) into participation (direct) effect and...

This paper investigates the impact of the pilot phase of Paraguay's conditional cash transfer programme, Tekoporã, on the demand for healthcare and education, and how much of this impact was due to the cash transfers and/or due to changes in behaviour/preferences, possibly as an effect of...

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...

Sick workers in many countries receive sick pay during their illness- related absences from the workplace. In several countries, the social security system insures firms against their workers' sickness absences. However, this insurance may create moral hazard problems for firms, leading to the...

This paper explores the capability of the state to affect the individual's decision to work for free. For this purpose we combine individual-level data from the European and World Values Survey with macroeconomic and political variables for OECD member countries. Empirically we identify three...