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This paper studies the determinants of women's welfare outcome in microcredit programs. These determinants are in the form of different types of characteristics of women: their own characteristics (age, schooling etc) or the characteristics of the household or village they live in. Observed effects are often biased due to correlation between some explanatory variables and unobserved ability. As finding suitable instruments of the endogenous variables are often difficult, this study finds information about unobserved ability from the marriage market. It is found that incorporating estimates of women's unobserved characteristics alleviates the problem of endogeneity. Therefore, we gain a better and reliable understanding of women's performance in the microcredit programs by combining information from both marriage market and microcredit programs. JEL Classifications: D13, G21, J12, 016, Q12 Keywords: Microcredit, Determinants, Marriage Market, Endogeneity, INTRODUCTION Microcredit programs have attracted much attention from researchers since their inception. These are small-scale credit programs that provide production credit and other services to rural poor. In recent years, [...]

Byline: Sandra K. Danziger, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; email: sandrakd@umich.edu Keywords: public assistance, single-mother families, employment Abstract This article highlights the scope of cash welfare as a poverty program and the policy context that led to the legislative distinctions between pre- and post-1996. Trends in welfare, employment, and poverty for single-mother families are presented, as are hypotheses that guide studies of the effects of welfare reform. Social science and policy research on how the reforms have affected economic outcomes, how reform has been implemented, and how it affects children are highlighted. I next summarize research on child care subsidies, an example of an effective family support that was part of welfare reform. I also highlight lessons from studies of recipient perspectives and those focused on how leavers get by without welfare. I identify gaps in understanding the reduced role of cash welfare for low-income families and offer continuing policy and research questions for addressing poverty in the current economic crisis and recovery.

Does interstate competition reduce welfare generosity? Most analyses of this question focus on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefit levels. The welfare-reducing logic of interstate competition should apply to all redistributive programs, however. We test for competitive effects more generally, examining several measures of welfare generosity for AFDC, Medicaid, and Supplemental Security Income-State (SSI-S) policy. We find evidence of interstate competition across multiple programs and measures over which states have authority. We also find variation in the effects that is consistent with variation in political debates across the programs.

This study analyzed interdependent behaviors among states in setting welfare benefits, behaviors often referred to as strategic interactions. Strategic interactions among states are believed to have led some state governments [...]

Researchers infrequently have focused on assessing the degree to which the changes in welfare policy legislated during the 1990s have affected immigrants' receipt of welfare. Using data from the March Current Population Survey, we analyze the contribution of local labor market conditions to the explanation of relative declines in immigrants receipt of welfare from 1994 to 2000. The results or a series of models that included labor market-area and state fixed effects indicate that employment and unemployment rates across metropolitan statistical areas and states account for at least one-third of the observed relative decrease among immigrants. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.

The interests in social indicators and social reporting started in the 1960s with the new awareness of poverty in the midst of affluence. In this paper I first discuss the poverty concept and its implication for social policy strategy. The poverty concept should be but one in a system of concepts that throws light on the whole distribution of income and wealth and how income from labor as well as income from capital is generated. The central concepts in the system are income and economic standard, which I explain in different perspectives on command over resources. The command-over-resources concept is used to get from a narrow concept of material welfare that can be measured in money to a wider concept of welfare that includes the universal common social concerns. I confess to being intrigued by the fact that a list of social concerns can be agreed upon that seems to be relevant across cultures, political systems and times. I suggest that this surmised universality springs from the great 'life projects' that all humans face over the life cycle. I then discuss the role of social indicators and social reporting as continuous information on these common concerns in the context of an epistemology of the democratic process. Social reporting would serve the democratic process best if it answers 'how it is' and leaves the answers on 'how it ought to be' and 'what should be done' to come about through discussion among citizens. KEY WORDS: democratic process, income distribution, poverty, quality of life, welfare

The approximate effects of measurement error on a variety of measures of inequality and poverty are derived. They are shown to depend on the measurement error variance and functionals of the error-contaminated income distribution, but not on the form of the measurement error distribution, and to be accurate within a rich class of error-free income distributions and measurement error distributions. The functionals of the error-contaminated income distribution that approximate the measurement error induced distortions can be estimated. So it is possible to investigate the sensitivity of welfare measures to alternative amounts of measurement error and, when an estimate of the measurement error variance is available, to calculate corrected welfare measures. The methods are illustrated in an application using Indonesian household expenditure data.

This research uses 1997 National Survey of America's Families data to show that fewer welfare caseloads may result in a sicker population for the Medicaid program, leading to higher enrollee costs and capitation rates.

This article discusses the contribution American social scientists have made to the study of poverty over the past 25 years as viewed from a comparative perspective. It has two parts. The first concentrates on the measurement of poverty and the fact that the U.S. poverty line remained fundamentally unchanged in that period despite increasingly important deficiencies in the way it was calculated. The second analyzes the broadened scope of U.S. research on the causes of poverty and its growing impact on poverty policy far beyond the United States.

Bruce D. Meyer (*) Between 1984 and 1996, changes in tax and transfer programs sharply increased the incentives for single mothers to work. Two aspects of these policy changes are [...]

A local measure of classical horizontal inequity (HI) in an income tax or tax-benefit system is proposed and aggregated into a global index. This index expresses the revenue gain per capita that would come from eliminating HI welfare-neutrally, and also reveals the loss of vertical performance, in terms of the Blackorby and Donaldson (1984) progressivity index, caused by the presence of HI. Non-parametric estimation procedures that can be used to tackle the 'identification problem' are delineated. An application to the Canadian tax-benefit system between 1981 and 1994 reveals the changing profile of local HI, its sources, and its aggregate significance.

Changes in the delivery of rural hospital services were evaluated using a discrete-choice, travel-cost demand model. Variables such as age, facility scope, income, severity of illness and travel-costs were highlighted by the results of a nested logit model to show the role they play in rural residents' decisions regarding hospital selection. Significant economic value was shown by welfare estimates to be embedded in the provision of rural hospital services. The retention of a very limited hospital facility in rural areas appears to be the feasible option to total closure.

Summary and Introduction The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA), is the income source of last resort for the low-income aged, blind, and disabled. [...]

An examination of a 1994 household survey of foreign-born Mexicans in Los Angeles County, California and the Current Population Surveys of March 1994 and 1995 revealed several surprising facts about welfare use by illegal immigrants. It was found that unauthorized Mexican immigrants in that area use welfare at a similar or lesser rate than other ethno-racial groups. In addition, Mexican welfare recipients do not use as much in terms of value as individuals from other groups who also access welfare. These findings negate prevailing public beliefs about welfare use by illegal immigrants.

There is extensive public provision of private goods in all developed countries. The public provision scheme is often designed so that individuals can opt out, but not top up (supplement) the publicly provided quantity/quality. Using an optimal income tax/public provision model we derive the respective conditions under which a public provision scheme should allow or forbid supplementing. Disregarding administrative costs, a system where individuals are not allowed to top up is optimal if the demand for the publicly provided good increases in the amount of leisure available, while a scheme allowing individuals to top up is warranted if the demand decreases with the amount of leisure.

The dynamics of welfare participation are analysed using a unique longitudinal data set derived from provincial administrative records over the period 1980-92. The principal findings are that the majority of welfare spells are experienced by single men and women without children, and that while most welfare spells are short, there is a high incidence of recidivism. Although continuous, long-term use and dependence on welfare is not characteristic of most recipients' experiences, the program does not provide an effective route to financial independence, since most users periodically return to the program.

Sweden has experienced a sequence of tax and benefit reforms during the last decade. In this paper we evaluate these reforms from labour supply, welfare and inequality points of view. We depart from a household labour supply model. Simulation of the model reveals that tax and benefit reforms have led to a considerable reduction of the excess burden. Regarding social welfare and inequality, we show that the results depend to a large extent on the income inequality measure and the measure of social welfare, as well as the income concept (household disposable income or money metric utility).

According to A.D. Chandler, Jr, the rise of organisational capabilities in German enterprises was decisive for the international economic success of the German Reich before 1914. This article deals with the changes in the organisational structures of enterprises through concentration and diversification and their consequences for welfare policy in German industry. The central question is to what extent the changing organisational structures affected the quality and quantity of welfare provided by companies. The interactions between welfare policy and organisation can be illustrated by the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG (VSt), the world's second largest iron and steel combine, next to US Steel, in the first half of the twentieth century. After a survey of the traditions of business welfare in Germany since the early nineteenth century, important aspects of industrial welfare policy, such as health insurance, company stores and housing, are analysed in the context of the VSt's organisational development between 1926 and 1933., According to A.D. Chandler, Jr, the model of 'cooperative managerial capitalism' has been typical for the structure of business in Germany since the nineteenth century and was decisive for the […]

This research examines the quantitative impacts of welfare program characteristics and individual characteristics on both the labor force and welfare participation decisions of low-income females with children. The participation decisions are estimated jointly as a bivariate probit model using data derived from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey for the years 1979 to 1990, inclusive. These data allow the estimation of the precise behavioral impacts of welfare. The main empirical findings are that effective welfare guarantee levels and the effective welfare tax rate on unearned income both significantly affect the probability of labor force and welfare program participation, but that such impacts are very small in magnitude. Implications for policy are discussed.

Tanner and Moore (1995) calculate welfare equivalent wags for the six most common social programs for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. They assert that individuals who choose public assistance over work are responding rationally to incentives of the welfare system, but they offer no evidence. I present statistically significant support for Tanner and Moore's assertion. Among potential welfare recipients, a one dollar increase in the welfare equivalent wage is found to increase the welfare take-up rate by approximately 2.7 percentage points and decrease the labor force participation rate by approximately 2.5 percentage points. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A model with health expenditure-based insurance payouts was created to assess the effects of providing subsidies for out-of-pocket health expenses. Findings based on the model reveal that subsidizing coinsurance payments lead to reduced health expenditures and increased welfare if health insurance premiums are payable with pretax dollars. Equal subsidies are also shown to be close to ideal in the presence of deadweight loss. In its absence, the ideal subsidy to coinsurance is greater than that provided to premiums, however, equal subsidies to both will still remain welfare improving.

After years of collective denial, most politicians (and welfare policy makers) have finally acknowledged the link between unwed parenthood and long-term welfare dependency, as well as a host of other [...]

The impact of higher welfare support levels on school participation rates are examined to determine the validity of standard economic theory on education. A random sample of 18- to 25-yr. old single mothers is used for the study. Results show that increases in the welfare system do not significantly affect educational levels. This result contradicts most of the findings provided for in empirical literature.

Bulgaria provided its citizens with a comprehensive social safety net which included retirement and disability pensions, and free health and education services. It also had full employment with highly compressed wages. However, with its transition to a market economy, output declined, wages dropped, and unemployment rose. Meanwhile, self-employment income increased as sharply as unemployment and in-kind income has become a successful coping mechanism, but there was hardly any change in social transfers. Moreover, the social safety net benefits mostly the wrong target, the middle income group. Reforms in social services are clearly needed., Bulgaria is a lower-middle income country with a population of about 8.5 million. In late 1989 it began introducing radical political and economic changes aimed at transforming the country into [...]

Monthly administrative records gathered for the period between Nov. 1983 and Sept. 1991 on income assistance in British Columbia were analyzed to determine the reasons for availment, withdrawal and return by individuals of such a service. Findings show that, contrary to popular opinion, single males and not women and children comprise the biggest group of availers. As for returnees, majority are residents of the province.