We examine the impact of government transfers and the business cycle on poverty in the United States in the context of a poverty function that includes the official poverty rate, three types of government transfers, real wages, the number of female-headed families, and a business cycle variable. Using cointegration techniques, we find ? contrary to most previous studies ? that government transfer programs play an important poverty-reducing role. In addition, the findings suggest that the business cycle is one of the key variables in explaining poverty in the US. Furthermore, the empirical results show that the size and composition of public transfer payments change over the business cycle. We also find poverty to have a significant effect on government transfers, the business cycle, and the structure of households.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Find related papers by JEL classification: I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data) C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: