This article addresses the political meaning of President Ronald Reagan's 1981 declaration that "government is the problem." Whereas historically the state had been used by elites to extract as much surplus as possible from producers, with democratization of the franchise, the state became the...

The academic world says that the divorce between economists and politicians became visible during the financial crisis that began in 2008, when the economists were criticised for failing to preview the crisis, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, for the slowness in accompanying the...

The differences between rural low-income mothers who were participants and non-participants in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) were examined. One-third of the 224 eligible mothers in a multi-state study did not claim the tax credit. Non-participants were more likely to be Hispanic, less...

Adoption assistance entitlements support the adoptions of children whose birth parents’ rights have been severed after abuse or neglect. The subsidies are meant to offset the extra cost to adoptive families of raising children whose adverse experiences have left them with special physical,...

Creating adoptions for children waiting in foster care is a good investment, but the number of adoptions created each year meets only a fraction of the need. This paper explores how the organization of the delivery of social services to waiting children and prospective adoptive families...

We examine current child welfare policy meant to encourage families to do the caring labor of fostering and adopting. Existing subsidy policy does not adequately insure foster and adoptive families against the financial risk associated with caring for children who have been victims of abuse or...

The human services cost of adoption is about half the cost of long-term foster care for children whose birth parents’ rights have been terminated. Because adoption is an effective intervention for improving a variety of outcomes for those exposed to adverse childhood experiences, the total...

This paper estimates the crowding out of private transfers caused by 70 y Más -a public assistance program for rural elderly adults in Mexico, for whom family support is an important source of income. Using data from the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey and a triple-difference...

Since 1980 the federal government has implemented a variety of programs to promote the adoption of children from foster care. A key part of these programs has been the use of subsidies to lower the cost of adopting and parenting children from foster care. Although subsidies are a key part of...

This paper examines the relationship between witchcraft beliefs, a deep-rooted cultural phenomenon, and trust, an integral element of social capital. We argue that witchcraft beliefs erode trust and cooperation and exploit novel survey data from nineteen countries of Sub-Saharan Africa to test...