Year: 2004
Type: report
Abstract: This paper offers a review of recent literature regarding the take up of social programs in the U.S. and U.K. A few general conclusions are drawn: First, take up is enhanced by automatic or default enrollment and lowered by administrative barriers, although removing individual barriers does not necessarily have much effect, suggesting that one must address the whole bundle. Second, although it may be impossible to devise a definitive test of the "stigma hypothesis", other, more concrete types of transactions costs are probably a good deal more important. Third, although people generally have means-tested programs in the United States in mind when they discuss take up, low take up is also a problem in many non means-tested social insurance programs and in other countries.
DOI: 10.3386/w10488
Author: Janet Currie
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2131627283