This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

What Mean Impacts Miss: Distributional Effects of Welfare Reform Experiments

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Marianne P. Bitler
Jonah B. Gelbach
Hilary W. Hoynes

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

Labor supply theory predicts systematic heterogeneity in the impact of recent welfare reforms on earnings, transfers, and income. Yet most welfare reform research focuses on mean impacts. We investigate the importance of heterogeneity using random-assignment data from Connecticut's Jobs First waiver, which features key elements of post-1996 welfare programs. Estimated quantile treatment effects exhibit the substantial heterogeneity predicted by labor supply theory. Thus mean impacts miss a great deal. Looking separately at dropouts and other women does not improve the performance of mean impacts. Evaluating Jobs First relative to AFDC using a class of social welfare functions, we nd that Jobs First's performance depends on the degree of inequality aversion, the relative valuation of earnings and transfers, and whether one accounts for Jobs First's greater costs. We conclude that welfare reform's effects are likely both more varied and more extensive than has been recognized.

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.

File URL: http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/2005/RAND_WR109.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by RAND Corporation Publications Department in its series Working Papers with number 109.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 60 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2003
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ran:wpaper:109

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, California 90407-2138
Phone: 310-393-0411
Fax: 310-393-4818
Email:
Web page: http://www.rand.org/pubs/
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Benson Wong).

Related research
Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

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.:
  1. 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!]
    Other versions:
  2. Rajeev Dehejia, 1999. "Program Evaluation as a Decision Problem," NBER Working Papers 6954, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Jeffrey Grogger & Charles Michalopoulos, 2003. "Welfare Dynamics under Time Limits," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 530-554, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Schoeni, R.F. & Blank, R.M., 2000. "What Has Welfare Reform Accomplished? Impacts on Welfare Participation, Employment, Income, Poverty, and Family Structure," Papers 00-02, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
    Other versions:
  5. Alberto Abadie & Joshua Angrist & Guido Imbens, 2002. "Instrumental Variables Estimates of the Effect of Subsidized Training on the Quantiles of Trainee Earnings," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 91-117, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. 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)
    Other versions:
  7. Gruber, Jonathan, 2000. "Cash welfare as a consumption smoothing mechanism for divorced mothers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 157-182, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Jeffrey Grogger, 2003. "The Effects of Time Limits, the EITC, and Other Policy Changes on Welfare Use, Work, and Income among Female-Headed Families," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 394-408, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1992. "Workfare versus Welfare Incentive Arguments for Work Requirements in Poverty-Alleviation Programs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 249-61, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Jonathan Gruber, 1996. "Cash Welfare as a Consumption Smoothing Mechanism for Single Mothers," NBER Working Papers 5738, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2003. "Some Evidence on Race, Welfare Reform, and Household Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 293-298, May. [Downloadable!]
  13. Sergio Firpo, 2004. "Efficient Semiparametric Estimation of Quantile Treatment Effects," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 605, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  14. Neil G. Bennett & Hsien-Hen Lu & Younghwan Song, 2002. "Welfare Reform and Changes in the Economic Well-Being of Children," NBER Working Papers 9399, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Heckman, James J & Smith, Jeffrey A, 1995. "Assessing the Case for Social Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 85-110, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Robert Moffitt, 2002. "Welfare Programs and Labor Supply," NBER Working Papers 9168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  17. Robert A. Moffitt, 1999. "The Effect of Pre-PRWORA Waivers on AFDC Caseloads and Female Earnings, Income, and Labor Force Behavior," JCPR Working Papers 89, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
  18. Keisuke Hirano & Guido W. Imbens & Geert Ridder, 2003. "Efficient Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Using the Estimated Propensity Score," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1161-1189, 07. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  19. Rebecca M. Blank, 2002. "Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1105-1166, December.
    Other versions:
  20. Heckman, James J & Smith, Jeffrey, 1997. "Making the Most Out of Programme Evaluations and Social Experiments: Accounting for Heterogeneity in Programme Impacts," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 64(4), pages 487-535, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Eissa, Nada & Liebman, Jeffrey B, 1996. "Labor Supply Response to the Earned Income Tax Credit," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(2), pages 605-37, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  22. Heckman, James J & Ichimura, Hidehiko & Todd, Petra, 1998. "Matching as an Econometric Evaluation Estimator," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 65(2), pages 261-94, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

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.)
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? To receive notification of recent additions to the database, subscribe to the free NEP reports.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-12.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.