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Estimating the Effects of a Time-Limited Earnings Subsidy for Welfare-Leavers

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Author Info
David Card
Dean R. Hyslop

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Abstract

In the Self Sufficiency Project (SSP) welfare demonstration, members of a randomly assigned treatment group could receive a subsidy for full-time work. The subsidy was available for 3 years, but only to people who began working full time within 12 months of random assignment. A simple optimizing model suggests that the eligibility rules created an "establishment" incentive to find a job and leave welfare within a year of random assignment, and an "entitlement" incentive to choose work over welfare once eligibility was established. Building on this insight, we develop an econometric model of welfare participation that allows us to separate the two effects and estimate the impact of the earnings subsidy on welfare entry and exit rates among those who achieved eligibility. The combination of the two incentives explains the time profile of the experimental impacts, which peaked 15 months after random assignment and faded relatively quickly. Our findings suggest that about half of the peak impact of SSP was attributable to the establishment incentive. Despite the extra work effort generated by SSP, the program had no lasting impact on wages and little or no long-run effect on welfare participation. Copyright The Econometric Society 2005.

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1468-0262.2005.00637.x
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Publisher Info
Article provided by Econometric Society in its journal Econometrica.

Volume (Year): 73 (2005)
Issue (Month): 6 (November)
Pages: 1723-1770
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Handle: RePEc:ecm:emetrp:v:73:y:2005:i:6:p:1723-1770

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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.:
  1. Dale T. Mortensen, 1977. "Unemployment insurance and job search decisions," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 30(4), pages 505-517, July.
  2. Rebecca M. Blank, David Card and Philip K. Robins, 1999. "Financial Incentives for Increasing Work and Income Among Low-Income Families," Economics Working Papers E99-264, University of California at Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Lemieux, Thomas & Fortin, Bernard & Frechette, Pierre, 1994. "The Effect of Taxes on Labor Supply in the Underground Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 231-54, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Phelps, Edmund S, 1994. "Low-Wage Employment Subsidies versus the Welfare State," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 54-58, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-75, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Card, David & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1988. "Measuring the Effect of Subsidized Training Programs on Movements in and out of Employment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(3), pages 497-530, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Hilary Hoynes & Richard Blundell, 2001. "Has "In-Work" Benefit Reform Helped the Labour Market?," NBER Working Papers 8546, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Butler, J S & Moffitt, Robert, 1982. "A Computationally Efficient Quadrature Procedure for the One-Factor Multinomial Probit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 761-64, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Dale Mortensen, 1984. "Job Search and Labor Market Analysis," Discussion Papers 594, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Greenberg, D.H. & Meyer, D.R. & Robins, P. & Michalopoulos, C., 1992. "Simulation Estimates on the Net Employment Impacts of Six Employment Subsidy Programs for Long-Term Welfare Recipients in Canada," Papers r-95-7, Gouvernement du Canada - Human Resources Development.
  11. Ham, John C & LaLonde, Robert J, 1996. "The Effect of Sample Selection and Initial Conditions in Duration Models: Evidence from Experimental Data on Training," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(1), pages 175-205, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, 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.)

  1. David Card & Dean R. Hyslop, 2006. "The Dynamic Effects of an Earnings Subsidy for Long-Term Welfare Recipients: Evidence from the SSP Applicant Experiment," NBER Working Papers 12774, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. David Card & Pablo Ibarraran & Ferdinando Regalia & David Rosas & Yuri Soares, 2007. "The Labor Market Impacts of Youth Training in the Dominican Republic: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 12883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Jeffrey Grogger, 2005. "Welfare Reform, Returns to Experience, and Wages: Using Reservation Wages to Account for Sample Selection Bias," NBER Working Papers 11621, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Bart, COCKX & StŽphane, ROBIN & Christian, GOEBEL, 2006. "Income support policies for part-time workers : a stepping-stone to regular jobs ? An application to young long-terme unemployed women in Belgium," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2006050, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2005. "Distributional Impacts of the Self-Sufficiency Project," NBER Working Papers 11626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Costas Meghir, 2006. "Dynamic models for policy evaluation," IFS Working Papers W06/08, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
  7. B. Cockx & C. Goebel & S. Robin, 2009. "Is income support for part-time workers a steppingstone to regular jobs? An application to young long-term unemployed women," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 09/561, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. [Downloadable!]
  8. Flores, Carlos A. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso, 2009. "Identification and Estimation of Causal Mechanisms and Net Effects of a Treatment under Unconfoundedness," IZA Discussion Papers 4237, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  9. Jeffrey Zabel & Saul Schwartz & Stephen Donald, 2006. "An Econometric Analysis of the Impact of the Self-Sufficiency Project on the Employment Behaviour of Former Welfare Recipients," IZA Discussion Papers 2122, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  10. Christian, GOEBEL, 2006. "The effect of temporary employment subsidies on employment duration," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2006035, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques. [Downloadable!]
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