Employment guarantee programs have often been used by developing countries to ensure livelihood of the poorer sections of the society without recourse to physical or human capital. India started the world’s largest such program in 2005 in the form of the National Rural Employment Guarantee...

This paper suggests a novel explanation of the steady rise in Germany's welfare recipient numbers. In the paper's model, there are disadvantaged households employed in a city with few amenities (a bad-amenity city) who would prefer to receive welfare in a city with many amenities (a good-amenity...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of contracting decisions in the provision of welfare-to-work (WTW) services. Our findings suggest that contracting decisions are predominantly driven by cost considerations, both for the decision to contract with other municipalities and the share of...

This paper presents the final economic results of the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) programme. ERA's distinctive combination of post-employment advisory support and financial incentives was designed to help low-income individuals who entered work sustain employment and advance in...

In this paper we focus on the role of caseworkers in the assignment and take-up of welfare-to-work programs. We conduct a field experiment that generates exogenous variation in the assignment to different policy regimes to caseworkers. The experiment allows us to provide evidence on the...

This paper attempts to uncover the effects of a welfare-to-work programme that acts as a wage subsidy on wage growth by exploiting an expansion to this welfare programme in the UK. The conventional wisdom is that such programmes trap recipients into low wage, low quality work – this comes from...

This paper studies mandatory job-search periods for welfare applicants. During this period the benefits application is put on hold and the applicant is obliged to make job applications. We combine a randomized experiment with detailed administrative data to investigate the effects of imposing a...

This paper studies mandatory job-search periods for welfare applicants. During this period the benefits application is put on hold and the applicant is obliged to make job applications. We combine a randomized experiment with detailed administrative data to investigate the effects of imposing a...

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program provides cash assistance to very-low-income families with children. Application procedures to receive TANF benefits, however, often involve substantial transaction costs likely to reduce take-up. We estimate, through a randomized...

The recent welfare-to-work reform requires lone parents with older children to be available for work. This article examines the likely effect of this reform and the proposed extension with regards to the employment rate of lone parents. It is argued that it will not lead to the desired increase...