Policy-makers have confronted welfare dependence and poverty among single mothers by imposing work requirements and time limits on the receipt of welfare benefits. Reforms with such features have generally reduced programme case-loads and increased the employment and earnings of single mothers....

I argue for thinking of program evaluation as a decision problem. There are two steps. First, a counselor determines which program (treatment or control) each individual joins, based for example on maximizing the probability of employment or expected earnings. Second, the policymaker decides...

We study a set of hypothetical reforms of child benefits in Germany, using a static tax-benefit microsimulation model augmented with endogenous labour supply and take-up choices (IAB-MSM). We distinguish between a reform of the universal non-means-tested child benefit, a reform of the...

The influence of peers could play an important role in the take up of social programs. However, estimating peer effects has proven challenging given the problems of reflection, correlated unobservables, and endogenous group membership. We overcome these identification issues in the context of...

Worldwide, single mothers are profoundly time and income constrained, making them heavily reliant on government transfers. We examine how welfare reforms that introduced mutual obligations affected the economic position of single mothers and the development of their children over the past two...

Despite long-term interest whether welfare benefits motivate fertility, evidence from research has not been consistent. This paper contributes new evidence to this debate by investigating the fertility effect of a German welfare reform. The reform decreased the household income of families on...

RUSMOD is a static tax-benefit microsimulation model for Russia. The model can be used for ex post and ex ante evaluation of reforms of personal income taxation and social benefits in Russia. In addition, being compatible with EUROMOD, the Russian model is suitable for simulation of...

Lone mothers are overrepresented among poor people in many European countries. In 1998, in Norway, a welfare reform increased the amount of benefits and introduced working requirements. Using a quasi-experimental model, Mogstad and Pronzato (2012) find a positive effect of the reform on lone...

Welfare persistence is estimated in and compared between Swedish-born and foreign-born households. This is done within the framework of a time-stationary dynamic discrete choice model controlling for the initial condition and unobserved heterogeneity. Three different types of persistence are...