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Human well-being and in-work benefits: a randomized controlled trial

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Listed author(s):
  • Dr Richard Dorsett

    ()

Abstract

Many politicians believe they can intervene in the economy to improve people’s lives. But can they? In a social experiment carried out in the United Kingdom, extensive in-work support was randomly assigned among 16,000 disadvantaged people. We follow a sub-sample of 3,500 single parents for 5 ensuing years. The results reveal a remarkable, and troubling, finding. Long after eligibility had ceased, the treated individuals had substantially lower psychological well-being, worried more about money, and were increasingly prone to debt. Thus helping people apparently hurt them. We discuss a behavioral framework consistent with our findings and reflect on implications for policy.

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File URL: http://www.niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/dp424_0.pdf
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Paper provided by National Institute of Economic and Social Research in its series NIESR Discussion Papers with number 424.

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Date of creation: Feb 2014
Handle: RePEc:nsr:niesrd:11791
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Web page: http://niesr.ac.uk

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
  • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
  • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
  • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
  • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

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  13. repec:mpr:mprres:1960 is not listed on IDEAS
  14. Card, David & Hyslop, Dean R., 2009. "The dynamic effects of an earnings subsidy for long-term welfare recipients: Evidence from the self sufficiency project applicant experiment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 153(1), pages 1-20, November.
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  17. Ifcher John, 2011. "The Happiness of Single Mothers after Welfare Reform," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-29, September.
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As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Human Well-being and In-Work Benefits: A Randomized Controlled Trial
    by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2014-03-11 13:40:25
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Cited by:

  1. Wolf, Tobias & Hetschko, Clemens & Schöb, Ronnie, 2016. "Income Support, (Un-)Employment and Well-Being," Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145860, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

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