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Does Welfare Policy Affect Residential Choices? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

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Author Info
Jon H. Fiva () (Statistics Norway)

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Abstract

This paper studies how changes in welfare benefit levels affect welfare recipients’ residential choices. Although several empirical studies have stressed that welfare policy may affect residential choices of welfare recipients, few studies have simultaneously taken into account that residential choices of welfare recipients also affect welfare policy. The main contribution of this paper is to address this policy endogeneity by utilizing a policy reform as a natural experiment. The results show that welfare policy exerts a nontrivial effect on residential choices of welfare recipients. Moreover, I show that ignoring the policy endogeneity may give rise to a downward bias in the estimated migration responses.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Research Department of Statistics Norway in its series Discussion Papers with number 503.

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Date of creation: May 2007
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Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:503

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Related research
Keywords: Welfare Benefits; Migration; Policy Endogeneity;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
R23 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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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. Moffitt, Robert, 1992. "Incentive Effects of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-61, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Terra McKinnish, 2005. "Importing the Poor: Welfare Magnetism and Cross-Border Welfare Migration," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1). [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Revelli, Federico, 2006. "Performance rating and yardstick competition in social service provision," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 459-475, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 2000. "Unnatural Experiments? Estimating the Incidence of Endogenous Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages F672-94, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Fiva, Jon H. & Rattso, Jorn, 2006. "Welfare competition in Norway: Norms and expenditures," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 202-222, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Phillip B. Levine & David J. Zimmerman, 1999. "An empirical analysis of the welfare magnet debate using the NLSY," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 391-409. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Wildasin, David E, 1991. "Income Redistribution in a Common Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 757-74, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Jan K. Brueckner, 2000. "Welfare Reform and the Race to the Bottom: Theory and Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 505-525, January.
  9. Meyer, Bruce D, 1995. "Natural and Quasi-experiments in Economics," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(2), pages 151-61, April.
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  10. Dahlberg, Matz & Edmark, Karin, 2004. "Is there a "Race-to-the-Bottom" in the Setting of Welfare Benefit Levels? Evidence from a Policy Intervention," Working Paper Series 2004:19, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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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. Edmark, Karin, 2007. "Effects of work requirements on welfare migration," Working Paper Series 2007:29, IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation. [Downloadable!]
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