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We investigate the effect of differential access to financial markets, discount factor and wealth endowment on poverty and inequality. We construct a model of educational and savings choice with heterogeneous agents. Motivated by empirical evidence, in this economy the return on savings is a non-decreasing function of the amount saved. As expected, more patient households tend to become wealthier and more educated. The heterogeneity on portfolio returns is shown to be key to our main result: the model closely fits the data on income and wealth inequalities, being able to explain the existing Brazil’s inequality patterns. The model was also calibrated to the US, with similar fit. We then evaluate two types of public policies based on cash transfer schemes (CTSs), that aim to reduce poverty and inequality. We find that the CTS version in which receiving the benefit is conditional on educating the household’s youngster outperforms its unconditional version in almost all dimensions analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the causal effects of the national (pro-poor) targeted programmes (NTPs) on both poverty incidence and inequality in Vietnam over the period 2002–2010. While the links between NTPs and poverty alleviation and income inequality have previously been analysed independently, this study is the first to offer a comprehensive analysis of NTPs expenditure on poverty and inequality simultaneously. Applying the system generalized method of moments estimator to a panel of Vietnamese regional data, we are unable to establish that NTPs have significantly mitigated poverty incidence. However, we estimate that NTPs have significantly increased inequality. We offer possible explanations why the NTPs have resulted in these unintended outcomes and discuss potential policies which can reduce both poverty and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate the effect of postnatal participation in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programme on breastfeeding decisions using the data from the IFPS II. We find that the infant’s WIC participation positively affects the hazard of discontinuing breastfeeding, both partial and exclusive (and is thus associated with abbreviated breastfeeding duration). No significant association is found between the mother’s participation and the hazards of stopping exclusive or partial breastfeeding. Such differential effects might be a result of the programme’s policy, according to which the infant, but not the mother needs to be enrolled to receive free formula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A heterogeneous mix of aggressive welfare reforms took effect in different provinces and years starting in the 1990s. Welfare participation rates subsequently declined. Previous investigations of these declines focused on cuts in benefits and stricter eligibility requirements. This article focuses instead on work requirements, diversion, earning exemptions and time limits – referred to jointly as new welfare reform strategies – while controlling for benefit levels, eligibility requirements, province-specific labour market conditions and GDP growth, as well as individual-level socio-economic information. Province-year-specific variation in new reform strategies produce estimates implying that their presence is associated with a large decline in welfare participation of 1.3 percentage points (14% relative to the unconditional mean participation rate of 9.2%). Our coding scheme generates new measures of policy variation that distinguish reductions in benefit levels and tighter eligibility restrictions from new welfare reform strategies, helping identify how different subpopulations responded to different kinds of welfare reforms. Estimates from 46 subpopulations demonstrate that immigrants, native Canadians, single parents and disabled people were substantially more likely to be affected by aggressive new attempts to limit welfare participation than other Canadians receiving social assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Empirical evidence reveals that German welfare recipients often participate in multiple active labour market programmes (ALMPs). However, evidence on the effectiveness of ALMPs exists mostly for single ALMP participations so far. This article evaluates the sequential participation in ALMPs for welfare recipients in Germany based on comprehensive administrative data to control for dynamic selection that arises in the evaluation of sequences. Using a dynamic causal model and an inflow sample of welfare recipients, the article analyses the effects of sequences of a public employment programme called One-Euro-Jobs on labour market outcomes. For female participants in One-Euro-Jobs in the first period, especially in West Germany, the results imply that participating in two consecutive One-Euro-Jobs compared with receiving only welfare benefits for two consecutive periods better facilitates integration into regular employment. Moreover, taking part in a One-Euro-Job directly after entry into welfare receipt is also more effective for participants in One-Euro-Jobs in the first period than taking part in a One-Euro-Job in a later period, especially for East German men (although not for West German women). However, I also find evidence of so-called programme careers and stepwise integration into regular employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine households’ applications to and participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program using administrative records from South Carolina. We model application resolutions with multinomial logit (MNL) specifications where the possible outcomes are acceptance, denial due to income ineligibility, denial due to a failure to provide sufficient information and denial due to other reasons. For cases with successful applications, we model the durations of participation spells using competing risk hazard specifications that distinguish among exits that result from missed recertifications, financial ineligibility, incomplete or missing information and other reasons. The application and hazard outcomes depend on past programme behaviour and observed characteristics. The results indicate that a household’s application and participation history affect its subsequent application success and programme tenure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How does labour market policy affect welfare recipients and long-term unemployed people? We investigate whether job search assistance (JSA) helps disadvantaged individuals to find jobs and whether courses or individual counselling is more successful in reaching this goal. To evaluate individual employment effects, we apply a quasi-experimental design and construct suitable comparison groups using propensity score matching methods. We compare participants to nonparticipants as well as participants of both schemes directly. Our article benefits from access to rich administrative data from the German Federal Employment Agency. When comparing participants to nonparticipants, results suggest that the individual JSA does not affect participants’ employment prospects at all and that the course JSA even decreased their employment chances. At the same time, differences in these effects can be ascribed to programme design differences and to differences in the groups of participants. Therefore, we compare both programmes directly to each other, that is, we use the other programme participants as a comparison group, respectively. We found some evidence that individual JSA performs better than course JSA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents a cost-benefit analysis of Britain’s Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) demonstration, which was evaluated through the first large-scale randomized control trial in the UK. ERA used a combination of job coaching and financial incentives in attempting to help long-term unemployed men and low-income lone parents sustain employment and progress in work once they were employed. Using both administrative and survey data, ERA’s effects on benefits and costs were estimated through impact analyses, which exploited the experimental design. The findings indicated that ERA was cost beneficial for long-term unemployed adult men, but not for lone parents. The key findings appear robust to sensitivity tests. Uncertainty, as implied by the SEs of the estimated impacts, was addressed through a Monte Carlo analysis, an approach seldom previously used in cost-benefit analyses of social programs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Happiness research has been a great success by yielding new and important insights. These results are often used in a technocratic manner: Governments should maximize, or at least raise, the subjective well-being of the population measured by the national happiness index. Yet the government has strong incentives and a wide range of possibilities to manipulate this index to its advantage. Happiness policy must be part of the normal democratic process where divergent views are considered and aggregated. In particular, competition between parties is a prerequisite for the insights from happiness research put to the benefit of the citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Preschool attendance is widely recognized as a key ingredient for later socioeconomic success, mothers' labor market participation, and leveling the playing field for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, the empirical evidence for these claims is still relatively scarce, particularly in Europe. Using data from the 2011 Austrian European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we contribute to this literature by studying the effects of having attended preschool for the adult Austrian population. We find strong and positive effects of preschool attendance on later educational attainment, the probability of working full time, hourly wages, and the probability that the mother is in the labor market. Full time workers at the bottom and the top of the distribution benefit less than those in the middle. Women in particular benefit more in terms of years of schooling and the probability of working full time. Other disadvantaged groups (second generation migrants; people with less educated parents) also often benefit more in terms of education and work.