Explaining welfare spending

Welfare expenditures are difficult to explain within a pure public choice-framework. In this article, I shall argue that the difficulties may be resolved by assuming that the main purpose of welfare schemes is to provide the electorate — in their capacity of different risk categories — with insurance against various social risks, rather than to redistribute economic resources towards weak and destitute groups in society. This solution not only explains the scope of existing welfare arrangements, but may also hold the key to an explanation as to how public welfare policies change and evolve across time.     

Subsidized housing and work among welfare recipients

Abstract

Some studies suggest an inverse relationship between housing assistance and employment. That is, when housing assistance increases, employment decreases. A popular view holds that subsidized housing generates an economic disincentive to work. This article examines the relationship between subsidized housing and the number of hours female recipients of public assistance work. A California survey reveals that residents in Section 8 housing work considerably more than do those renting in the private market or residing in public housing. This finding holds after controlling for observable personal characteristics and accounting for income effects. Additional analysis comparing the two housing programs shows a consistent, robust difference, with those in Section 8 working more.

One explanation is that the finding is a statistical artifact caused by programmatic creaming or self‐selection among applicants. The second, more plausible explanation is that Section 8 housing offers residential choice and mobility that improve opportunities for employment.     

Can work alter welfare recipients' beliefs?

A common argument in support of work‐based welfare reform is that exposure to work will lead welfare recipients to revise their beliefs about how they will be treated in the labor market. This paper explores the analytical and empirical basis for this argument. The difficulty in testing the assumption that work leads to a change in beliefs is that there is an inherent simultaneity between work and beliefs. Welfare recipients who work may have different beliefs because they learn about the world of work once they enter the labor market. Alternatively, welfare recipients who have a more positive view of work are the ones who are more likely to work. We use a unique data set that helps solve this simultaneity problem. We find that exogenous increases in work induced by an experimental tax credit led to the predicted change in beliefs among younger workers. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Child protective intervention in the context of welfare reform: The effects of work and welfare on maltreatment reports

Recent changes in welfare policy have produced changes in parental work and welfare receipt. These factors are assessed in relation to investigated reports of child abuse and neglect using survey data on 1998 welfare recipients in nine Illinois counties, in conjunction with longitudinal administrative data on cash welfare benefits, employment, and child abuse and neglect reports. Trend analyses show that rates of child maltreatment reports among welfare recipients have risen since the passage of PRWORA in 1996. Findings from multivariate analyses indicate that parental employment has a protective effect on reports to child protection systems (CPS), that this effect is greatest when combined with welfare receipt, and that this effect becomes stronger over time. Those who receive welfare in the absence of employment face a significantly greater risk of CPS involvement, even compared with those who neither work nor receive welfare. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Morbid obesity and the transition from welfare to work.

This paper utilizes a rich longitudinal data set--the Women's Employment Study (WES)--to investigate whether obesity, which is common among women of low socioeconomic status, is a barrier to employment and earnings for current and former welfare recipients. We find that former welfare recipients who are both White and morbidly obese have been less successful in transitioning from welfare to work. These women are less likely to work at any survey wave, spend a greater percentage of months between waves receiving cash welfare, and have lower monthly earnings at each wave. The magnitude of the difference in labor market outcomes between the morbidly obese and those who are less heavy is in some cases similar in magnitude to the differences in these labor market outcomes between high school dropouts and graduates. In contrast, we find no such labor market differences associated with morbid obesity for African-American respondents. This paper documents the relationship between weight and labor market outcomes for the first time among the welfare population. In addition, it investigates whether the correlation for White females is due to unobserved heterogeneity. We find that after controlling for individual fixed effects, the point estimate of the correlation of morbid obesity and each of the labor market outcomes falls considerably and is no longer statistically significant. These results are consistent with unobserved heterogeneity causing the correlation between morbid obesity and labor market outcomes. Findings are similar after controlling for the respondent's mental and physical health.     

Does it pay to move from welfare to work?

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act requires welfare recipients to look for work and has made it more difficult for nonworking recipients to remain on the welfare rolls. In addition, the economic boom of the 1990s and changes in federal and state policies have raised the net income gain associated with moving from welfare to work. This paper analyzes data from a panel survey of single mothers, all of whom received welfare in February 1997. In 1999, those who left welfare and were working had a higher household income and lower poverty rate, experienced a similar level of material hardship, engaged in fewer activities to make ends meet, and had lower expectations of experiencing hardship in the near future than did nonworking welfare recipients. Estimations of fixed‐effect regressions of income that control for both observable and unobservable time‐invariant characteristics show that monthly net income increases by $2.63 for every additional hour of work effort. About 60 percent of the observed monthly income difference between wage‐reliant and welfare‐reliant mothers can be attributed to differences in their work effort. Thus, after welfare reform, it does pay to move from welfare to work. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The long‐term effects of housing assistance on work and welfare

This paper examines the long‐term effect of project‐based housing assistance—public housing and private assisted housing—on work, earnings, and welfare receipt. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics–Assisted Housing Database to identify women ever living in project‐based assisted housing and to create comparison groups using propensity scores. Analyses show no evidence that moving into this type of assisted housing is associated with sustained reductions in employment rates, work hours, or earnings. Although welfare rates decline, they remain higher for assisted housing recipients compared with nonrecipients. Overall, these findings align with those of recent experimental and nonexperimental studies that include other forms of housing assistance and cover different time periods. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Majoritarian miracles and the question of party system change

European Journal of Political Research - The 1996 elections in Italy may be evaluated using a dual means of inquiry: which novelties (or the absence thereof) appear with respect to 1994? And, how...     

Majoritarian miracles and the question of party system change

The 1996 elections in Italy may be evaluated using a dual means of inquiry: which novelties (or the absence thereof) appear with respect to 1994? And, how many and in what way (if any) do they contribute to the definition of a new type of party system and a new logic of political competition? As regards the former perspective, we address three questions which represented fundamental issues at the time of the vote: (a) Would the new electoral system manage to provide a clear and stable governmental majority where it had failed to do so in 1994? (b) Would the political parties and alliances have changed their offers to the voters? (c) Would the voters have changed their behaviour, adapting it not just to any new offers, but especially to the logic of majoritarian competition? Regarding the latter perspective, these questions can be amalgamated into a single enquiry: Do the 1996 elections constitute a decisive step in the direction of a new party system, or are they a step backwards, or do they simply present a static picture?     

A theory of predatory welfare state and citizen welfare: the French case

Public Choice - In this paper, we argue that the welfare state is an outcome of modern mass (total) warfare. The total war economy requires the participation of all citizens, erasing the...     

Assets and welfare

He is author of Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy.     

Intelligence Analysis Theory: Explaining and Predicting Analytic Responsibilities

Theoretical work involves explanation and prediction, but thus far there has been little scholarly work explaining and predicting the role of intelligence analysts in support of foreign and national security policies. Without a theory of intelligence, it becomes difficult to decide what the appropriate substantive analytical responsibilities of the intelligence community should be. Accordingly, a theory of foreign intelligence analysis is necessary. This paper presents a theoretical framework developed during the immediate post-Cold War timeframe to explain why there was such a wide variety of perspectives regarding the future need for intelligence, embeds these ideas within the existing intelligence theory literature, applies this framework more generally in a way that can be used to explain variations in the substantive coverage of intelligence analysis in the past and predict possible variations in the future, and then tests the theory's ability to explain the analytical focus of domestic intelligence organizations.     

Explaining migration: theory at the crossroads

The author presents the case that the study of migration over the past century has become too diverse. He reviews works by writers from the several disciplines covering the topic, then cites the need to develop a consistent classification of the types of migration and their origins using standardized terminology. (SUMMARY IN ENG)