Homelessness prevention programs intervene with households apparently in imminent danger of becoming homeless, and try to keep them housed. If they are at least partially successful, how do they change the average shelter spell of households actually becoming homeless? We use data from 2003 to...

This chapter reviews the theory of the voluntary public and private redistribution of wealth elaborated by economic analysis in the last forty years or so. The central object of the theory is altruistic gift-giving, construed as benevolent voluntary redistribution of income or wealth. The theory...

Fifty-three percent of workers worldwide surveyed in 2008 reported they would rather work and earn less, but have a happy stress-free fulfilling life. For the 78 million baby boomers and their pre- and post-boom colleagues this desire has resulted in a phenomenon that has been labeled "encore...

We discuss nonparametric methods and statistical tests that are appropriate to assess poverty targeting in public programs. These methods explicitly account for the possibility that the population distributions of participants and non-participants cross. Crossing points provide us with upper...

We study the problem of unemployment benefit provision when the family is also a provider of social insurance. As a benchmark, a simple model is presented where risksharing motives govern intra-family transfers and more generous unemployment benefits, provided by the State, crowd out family...

In-kind transfers can provide insurance benefits when prices of consumption goods vary, as is common in developing countries. We develop a model demonstrating that in-kind transfers are welfare improving to beneficiaries relative to cash if the covariance between the marginal utility of income...

The proposal involves the establishment of 'welfare accounts' for every person in a country. There are to be four accounts: a retirement account (covering pensions), an unemployment account (covering unemployment support), a human capital account (covering education and training), and a health...