The turbulent 1830s saw a sequence of great political and social reforms in the UK. One such reform was the introduction of a locally funded poor law in Ireland. The development of a nascent welfare system in 1838 coincided with a boom in the formation of microfinance institutions in Ireland....

Proximity augments homeless students' educational outcomes. Homeless K-8 graders whose families are placed in shelters near their schools have 8 percent (2.4 days) better attendance, are a third (18 percentage points) less likely to change schools, and exhibit higher rates of proficiency and...

Using an original administrative dataset in the context of a scarcity induced-natural experi-ment in New York City, I find that families placed in shelters in their neighborhoods of origin remain there considerably longer than those assigned to distant shelters. Locally-placed families also...

Most countries around the world implement some form of a safety net program for poor households. A widespread concern is that such programs crowd out private-sector jobs. But they could also improve workers' welfare by allowing them to take on more risk, for example through self-employment. This...

This paper asks what governments in the EU Member States and some US states are doing to support workers on low wages. Using model family simulations, we assess the policy measures currently in place to guarantee an adequate disposable income to working families, taking into account minimum...

A marked population growth, added to the notorious increase of the older adult population in comparison with the new generations, are both important demographic phenomena in the 21st century. Two continents, Asia and Latin America, two ways of governing and generating public policies. Even so,...

The proposed study uses the convergent framework and mixed methods to examine dynamic relationships between natural disaster damages, emergency responses, recovery efforts, public health and hazard readiness in Puerto Rico. The research focuses on economic equality as we seek to improve...

Covering the full population of applicants to the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PATH), we explore whether receiving PATH since childhood altered the academic gains from attending a more preferred public secondary school. To uncover causal associations, we implement a double...

The War on Poverty is 50 years old. Over that time, federal and state governments have spent more than $19 trillion fighting poverty. But what have we really accomplished?Although far from conclusive, the evidence suggests that we have successfully reduced many of the deprivations of material...

In the decade before the Great Famine, Ireland experienced a boom in microfinance institutions (MFIs). Taking a social enterprise perspective, this paper analyses the institutional context for this boom. It finds evidence linking the boom in MFIs to the development, via the introduction of the...