The fallout from the global economic downturn of 2008-09 is a continuing source of stress on families and a constraint on government policies. How can social policies contribute to a quick and equitable recovery from the crisis and how can they best respond to the difficulties that households...

Almost all OECD countries operate comprehensive minimum-income programmes for working-age individuals, either as last-resort safety nets alongside primary income replacement benefits, or as the principal instrument for delivering social protection. Such safety-net benefits aim primarily at...

Almost all OECD countries operate comprehensive minimum-income programmes for working-age individuals, either as last-resort safety nets alongside primary income replacement benefits, or as the principal instrument for delivering social protection. Such safety-net benefits aim primarily at...

In this article, I study state dependence in social assistance receipt in Germany using annual survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1995-2011. There is considerable observed state dependence, with an average persistence rate in benefits of 68% comparing to an...

In this article, we study state dependence in social assistance receipt in Germany using annual survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1995-2011. We show that there is considerable observed state dependence, with an average persistence rate in benefits of 68%...

Dynamic discrete-choice models are an important tool in studies of state dependence in benefit receipt. A common assumption of such models is that benefit receipt sequences follow a conditional Markov process. This property has implications for how estimated period-to-period benefit transition...

Means-tested Social Assistance (SA) benefits play an important role as social protection floors supporting households in financial difficulties. This paper presents evidence on the patterns of SA benefit receipt in a selection of OECD and EU countries. It provides an overview of the role of SA...

The fallout from the global economic downturn of 2008-09 is a continuing source of stress on families and a constraint on government policies. How can social policies contribute to a quick and equitable recovery from the crisis and how can they best respond to the difficulties that households...

In this article, I study state dependence in social assistance receipt in Germany using annual survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1995-2011. There is considerable observed state dependence, with an average persistence rate in benefits of 68% comparing to an...

In this article, we study state dependence in social assistance receipt in Germany using annual survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1995-2011. We show that there is considerable observed state dependence, with an average persistence rate in benefits of 68%...