This paper presents an analysis of the recent evolution of social assistance in the developing world, looking at its complex typological configuration, which has interlinked with, and partly reflects the complex demographic and epidemiological transitions and rapid urbanization and economic...

Poor persons in poor countries are greatly exposed to the risk of adverse shocks, many of international origin, which can create long-lasting damage to individual well-being. There is a strong moral and prudential case for taking measures which reduce the extent to which such shocks arise and...

This paper reviews how income-support systems affect labour force participation in the UK. The UK's approach to social insurance is "basic security", with modest, typically flat-rate, benefits; insurance-based benefits are relatively unimportant. Compared with the EU, the UK has high employment...

Programs to fight poverty aim at allowing individuals to support themselves ex-post, when they are not part of the program anymore. We compare the ex-post effects of conditional and unconditional cash transfer programs on labor income. We use an experiment where low-income individuals are...

The family needs survey was conducted over a three-week period from April 25 through May 15, 2002, at 230 different events in 124 different locations throughout Los Angeles County. Nearly 60 percent of the surveys were completed in welfare offices, the rest in adult education classes and...

The nation's best known welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was created to give widows and destitute mothers the means to stay at home and care for children. However, the entry of large numbers of American mothers into the paid workforce has created increasing tension...

In this chapter I discuss the history and basic incentive effects of two key U.S. cash assistance programs aimed at families with children. Starting roughly in the 1980s, critics of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program argued that the program -- designed largely to cut...