This essay summarises the broad contours and key characteristics of the Indian government’s social policy response to the global Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing nationwide lockdown. The principal strategy of the Indian government was to implement a large and at times bewildering array of...

This report analyzes the Philippines’ ambitious response to the economic risks and dislocation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020: a set of targeted income support measures that intended to cover unprecedented shares of the population. It...

Non-take-up of means tested benefits is a wide spread phenomenon in European welfare states. The paper assesses whether the reform that replaced the monetary social assistance benefit by the minimum income benefit in Austria has succeeded in increasing take up rates. We use EU-SILC register data...

After independence, energy and food subsidies became a cornerstone of the social contracts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. Governments spent heavily to reduce poverty and strengthen their own legitimacy. However, as government rents faded, subsidy spending became...