The article analyzes the use of some theories created to explain the trajectory of the welfare state on the developed countries of North America and Western Europe on the case of underdeveloped countries. It emphasizes that due to differences between developed and underdeveloped countries in...

Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics by insurers to group individuals with similar expected claims, to compute the corresponding premiums, and thereby to reduce asymmetric information. Permitting risk classification may reduce informational asymmetry-induced...

This paper examines the economic consequences of manipulation of social insurance benefits. Using administrative data of the public long-term care insurance (LTCI) in Japan, we document novel discontinuity and bunching in the distribution of health scores that determine benefit levels for LTCI....

Economic and political decisions usually involve a trade-off between efficiency and equality considerations. While some inequality is expected to prevail in our societies, high levels of it are objectionable on various grounds. One of the fundamental roles of government is to collect and...

This paper analyses the effects of Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program on school attendance and household income distribution, accounting for its partial and general equilibrium effects. Linking a microeconometric simulation model and a general equilibrium model in a bidirectional...

Many targeted childhood interventions such as the Perry Preschool Project select eligible children based on a risk score. The variables entering the risk score and their corresponding weights are usually chosen ad hoc and are unlikely to be optimal. This paper develops a simple economic model...

While decreasing inequality is generally considered desirable, and there is a growing understanding of which policies do and do not promote equality, much less is known regarding why these policies are adopted to varying degrees of intensity in different times and places. To explain this...

In public policy discourse, the role of government is not universally accepted, but tends to have widespread support. Most of those who want smaller government with fewer programs accede to the notion that government is here to stay in, e.g., care for the poor. This paper challenges the role of...

Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) is the United States' most significant, if not its only attempted, experiment with universal asset policies. This chapter helps clarify where the PFD fits within the larger portfolio of economic rights and obligations guaranteed by the liberal state. Is the...

We study how households choose neighborhoods, how neighborhoods affect child ability, and how housing vouchers influence neighborhood choices and child outcomes. We use two new panel data sets with tract-level detail for Los Angeles county to estimate a dynamic model of optimal tract-level...