In Germany, the number of low-wage jobs is relatively small. The paper examines why this is so and which institutional reforms of the welfare state could help to expand the labour demand for low-wage work to give persons with a relatively low productivity a better chance to reintegrate into the...

In Europe differences among countries in the overall change in happiness since the early 1980s have been due chiefly to the generosity of welfare state programs - increasing happiness going with increasing generosity and declining happiness with declining generosity. This is the principal...

How do administrative burdens influence enrollment in different welfare programs? Who is screened out at a given stage? This paper studies the impacts of increased administrative burdens associated with the automation of welfare caseworker assistance, leveraging a unique natural experiment in...

How much have government programs improved elderly well-being? I examine the impact of OAA on mortality between 1930-1955. I construct two new data sets: a database on OAA, and a database on elderly mortality. To control for joint determination of income and mortality, I use a simulated IV...

This paper –which was delivered as “Lecture 2003” of the Associazione Manlio Rossi Doria - begins with an investigation into the crisis of the “Fordist welfare system” and its three main social institutions: the nuclear family, the large firm, and the “Welfare State”. These...

We present the framework of a macro-micro simulation model for the study of the impact of economic policies on income distribution and monetary poverty in Madagascar. Modelling options and choices are discussed for the micro-economic module and for the macro-micro linkages. Econometric...

Chile approved in early 2008 the replacement of her two current non-contributory subsidies for the old poor for a unified program with a pioneering design, with phase-in ending in 2012. This paper describes the political economy of this reform and evaluates it with regards to efficiency and...

To date, prices of gas and other energy used by households in Ukraine have been generously subsidized by the Government. However, suppressed energy prices lead to excessive use of gas and an inefficient level of investment into energy savings. In addition, Ukraine’s dependence on imported gas...

This paper studies the effect of welfare programs on work incentives and the labor supply of adults in developing countries. The document builds on the experimental evaluations of three programs implemented in rural areas: Mexico’s PROGRESA, Nicaragua’s Red de Protección Social (RPS) and...

Data from 76 experimental welfare-to-work programs conducted in the United States between 1983 and 1998 are used to investigate whether the impacts of such programs on employment had been improving over time and whether specific program features influencing such changes can be identified. Over...