IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/niesru/v186y2003i1p85-97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring the Macroeconomic Effects of Reducing Benefit Dependency

Author

Listed:
  • Ray Barrell

    (National Institute of Economic and Social Research r.barrell@niesr.ac.uk)

  • Simon Kirby

    (National Institute of Economic and Social Research s.kirby@niesr.ac.uk)

  • Rebecca Riley

    (National Institute of Economic and Social Research r.riley@niesr.ac.uk)

  • Desiree van Welsum

    (National Institute of Economic and Social Research)

Abstract

We construct a framework for evaluating the macroeconomic impact on the UK economy of policies that are aimed at reducing the number of people receiving social security benefits by helping them into employment. By means of model simulation we evaluate the gains to the economy in terms of output, employment and improvements to the public finances of a policy that reduces the number of people claiming disability benefits or lone parents on Income Support by 5 per cent. These gains can be regarded as significant and have to be offset against the costs of the policy. We conclude that it is possible to evaluate the impact of policies to enable benefit claimants to find work using a macroeconomic model, and that such an evaluation should be included in each assessment of policy change.

Suggested Citation

  • Ray Barrell & Simon Kirby & Rebecca Riley & Desiree van Welsum, 2003. "Measuring the Macroeconomic Effects of Reducing Benefit Dependency," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 186(1), pages 85-97, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:186:y:2003:i:1:p:85-97
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ner.sagepub.com/content/186/1/85.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:186:y:2003:i:1:p:85-97. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/niesruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.