We evaluate the costs of three different programs for alleviating long term poverty: (i) workfare, or grants made contingent on a work requirement, (ii) universal welfare, or unconditional grants, and (iii) means-tested welfare, or grants conditioned on private labor market earnings. We identify...

Cross-disciplinary ?happiness research? has made big progress in the measurement of individual welfare. This development makes it tempting to pursue the old dream of maximizing aggregate happiness as a social welfare function. However, we postulate that the appropriate approach is not to...

This paper describes a method of estimating the welfare effects of a set of price changes, using money measures of welfare change such as compensating and equivalent variations, and the associated concept of "equivalent income".

The objective of this paper is to develop an index of economic weel-being for Canada for the period 1971 to 1997 using a framework originally laid out by Osberg (1985). Although the economic well-being of a society depends on the level of average consumption flows, aggregate accumulation of...

This paper provides a review of part of the literature on inequality and social welfare, with a special focus on the Gini index. The paper first presents the extended Gini index used for measuring inequality, as well as the source decomposition of the Gini used to analyze how changes in income...

This paper provides a review of part of the literature on inequality and social welfare, with a special focus on the Gini index. The paper first presents the extended Gini index used for measuring inequality, as well as the source decomposition of the Gini used to analyze how changes in income...

This paper provides a review of part of the literature on inequality and social welfare, with a special focus on the Gini index. The paper first presents the extended Gini index used for measuring inequality, as well as the source decomposition of the Gini used to analyze how changes in income...

We built a model of child labor and study its implications for welfare and fertility.

Why did the West grow so rapidly over the last 500 years, while much of therest of the world stagnated? And why several countries, especially in East Asia, grown so fast over the last half-century? If we can understand these growth experiences, and identify the forces which made them possible,...

Currently, most countries are concerned with the implementation of public policies which increase or maintain the social welfare of their citizens. The most important component of this policy is the social one, and within it stands out particularly the social protection system. In Romania, this...