The dramatic decline in the AFDC-TANF caseload in the 1990s has refocused attention on the process of exit from and entry into welfare, a long-standing topic of interest in the research literature on the U.S. welfare system. This paper focuses on the role of non-financial factors in exit and...

Work requirements in means-tested transfer programmes have grown in importance in the US and in some other countries. The theoretical literature which considers their possible optimality generally operates within a traditional welfarist framework where some function of the utility of the poor is...

The aim of this note is to interpret estimation of the conventional treatment-effect selection-bias model in econometrics as a method of aggregation and to draw the implications of this interpretation. In addition, the paper notes the connection of this interpretation with an older style of...

This article provides evidence on changes in short-term job instability and insecurity using the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Monthly measures from this data set are contrasted with annual measures from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Panel Study of Income...

We estimate the trend in the transitory variance of male earnings in the U.S. using the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1970 to 2004. Using both an error components model as well as simpler but only approximate methods, we find that the transitory variance started to increase in the...

All developed economies have unemployment benefit programs to protect workers against major income losses during spells of unemployment. By enabling unemployed workers to meet basic consumption needs, the programs protect workers from having to sell their assets or accept jobs below their...