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The Incentive Effects of Cash Transfers to the Poor

Year: 2020
Type: report
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: All redistributive and social insurance programs trade off the potential benefits of transfers with the disincentives these programs generate.We investigate this trade-off using newly collected lifetime data for 16,000 women who applied to the Mothers' Pension Program, the first cash transfer program in the US.In the short-run cash transfers reduced geographic mobility and delayed marriage of recipients but did not affect who they married or where they moved to.In the long run transfers had no effect on work, marriage or fertility behaviors.They also did not improve the economic conditions of recipients or their longevity.
DOI: 10.3386/w27523
Institutions: University of Minnesota, National Bureau of Economic Research, University of British Columbia, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Toronto, Princeton University, Brown University, Yale University, Carnegie Mellon University
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3040918147
Cites: 48
Cited by: 29
Related to: 10