{"title":"Bringing Proverbs to Policy: Classical Economics, Proverbial Wisdom, and Applications for Welfare Policy","authors":"Paul L. Winfree","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3194637","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3194637","url":null,"abstract":"Economists have had tremendous influence in designing antipoverty programs in both Great Britain and America over the last 200 years. However, today’s economic experts have lost some respect for the wisdom of non-experts, or ordinary people, that was held in high regard by their intellectual forerunners. This article argues that the antipoverty programs designed by experts would be improved by the incorporating the wisdom of ordinary people. \u0000Classical economists from Adam Smith (the founder of modern economics) to John Stuart Mill (“the most influential English language philosopher of the nineteenth century” according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) believed that experts should pay close attention to the wisdom of ordinary people that is captured in proverbs, or proverbial wisdom. \u0000According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a proverb is a “short piece of advice” whereas wisdom is “knowledge or experience that develops within a society or period”. We can think of proverbial wisdom as advice that represents practical knowledge. In other words, proverbial wisdom is similar to aggregated anecdotal evidence that has been passed between people across time. \u0000The primary difference between economic experts today and non-experts is that experts see the world through formal models, whereas non-experts use the summation of experiences. A measure of these experiences (for instance, the experience of the median person or even the median voter) are transmittable through proverbial wisdom. The public policies of poor relief since the 1800s have been driven by debates over expert models and not debates between models and proverbial wisdom. Put another way, the rise in the expert has led to the fall of proverbial wisdom. \u0000Proverbs, as the reflection of human experience, could help to avoid injustice by guiding a system of heuristics to help with judging morality. For both Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, the “Golden Rule” which they attributed to Jesus Christ, was especially meaningful in this regard. However, reliance the proverbs without the application of reason was not only unwise, but equivalent to idolatry. \u0000This article covers the “rise of the welfare expert” and the development of antipoverty policy in both Great Britain and the United States since the 1500s. The article also covers the use of proverbs in classical economics. Finally, the article concludes by making recommendations on how antipoverty might be improved in the United States.","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133337559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Joint Ownership Housing in Urban China: A Property Inalienability Perspective","authors":"F. Deng","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3182894","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3182894","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes joint ownership housing (JOH), a new type of low-income housing in China, from a property inalienability perspective. JOH policy that was recently promulgated by the Beijing City shows that local government is really a passive owner in JOH, contradicting a common argument that JOH can realize asset growth for government equity investment. In this sense, JOH is a policy tool that can continuously adjust property inalienability. In JOH, the government maximizes two externalities from property inalienability, namely externality on the homeowner’s production and externality of his/her windfall gain on the society, while the homeowner maximizes his/her financial gains. Nash equilibrium determines optimal equity position of the government and optimal exit timing by the homeowner. Numerical simulation shows that homeowner’s behavior is very sensitive to how housing price changes over time. Small government equity position can easily yield corner solutions in which the homeowner immediately sells the property after the first year. This finding helps to explain why local governments in China often impose a five-year window of inalienability on JOH.","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116450348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining the Role of ICT on Financial Inclusion in World's Biggest Public Employment Programme in Uttarakhand, India","authors":"M. Chakraborty, Matirayee Mukerji","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3058537","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3058537","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines how deployment of ICT in public employment programme is improving egovernance making and helping the workforce to access banking services for receiving their wages. The study draws on field work done among 118 MGNREGA beneficiaries in Chamoli district, located up in the Himalayan State of Uttarakhand. The beneficiaries of the 100 days employment guarantee scheme are finding work only for 36 days. The compulsory routing of wage payments through bank and post offices have enabled inclusion in the banking process, however, these accounts are not being used beyond savings and withdrawals. The study recommends maintaining guaranteed employment to a minimum of 100 days, reducing delays in wage payment to a maximum of two weeks compared to one year at present and introduce multiple layers of checking details of beneficiaries against available personal identification documents to reduce the phenomenon of ghost clients.","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127674857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sympathy for the Diligent and the Demand for Workfare","authors":"Andrés Drenik, Ricardo Perez-Truglia","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1599368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1599368","url":null,"abstract":"We study the role of fairness concerns in the demand for redistribution through workfare. In the first part of the paper, we present new evidence from a survey. We show that individuals are more generous towards poor people whom they perceive to be diligent workers relative to poor people whom they perceive to be non-diligent, a social preference that we label sympathy for the diligent. This preference is much stronger than preferences regarding other characteristics of the poor, such as race, nationality, and disability. More important, we show that subjects with higher sympathy for the diligent have a stronger preference for workfare programs. In the second part of the paper, we incorporate our empirical findings into a model of income redistribution. We consider the case of a benevolent government with fairness concerns that prioritizes the well-being of individuals who exert the most effort. We characterize the optimal conditions under which the government introduces work requirements. Even if wasteful, work requirements can be optimal, because they allow for a better distinction between individuals who exert great effort and individuals who do not. However, if the government lacks commitment power, the availability of screening through work requirements leads to a lower equilibrium effort and, possibly, a Pareto-dominated allocation.","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132594890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Welfare Stigma in the Lab: Evidence of Social Signaling","authors":"J. Friedrichsen, Tobias König, Renke Schmacker","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2999722","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2999722","url":null,"abstract":"Using a laboratory experiment, we present first evidence that stigmatization through public exposure causally reduces the take-up of an individually beneficial transfer. Our design exogenously varies the informativeness of the take-up decision by varying whether transfer eligibility is based on ability or luck, and how the transfer is financed. We find that subjects avoid the inference both of being low-skilled and of being willing to live off others. Using a placebo treatment we can exclude other explanations for the observed stigma effect. In the experiment, social stigmatization implies a reduction in the take-up rate of 30 percentage points.","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115778330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Madison House: Riley Carter","authors":"Sherwood C. Frey, Lucien L. Bass, M. Grant","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2975168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2975168","url":null,"abstract":"This two-part negotiation exercise is used in Negotiations electives at both the Darden School of Business and the McIntire School of Commerce. Together the cases provide the background for a scorable, bilateral, multi-issue negotiation in which there are congruent, distributive, and integrative issues. People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry (PACEM) was a nonprofit organization committed to helping homeless adults in the Charlottesville, Virginia, community find shelter during the cold months. Reliant upon volunteers, PACEM had partnered for the previous five years with Madison House, a nonprofit organization run by students at the University of Virginia that coordinated student volunteers, developed student leaders, and built community partnerships. In preparation for the return of Madison House volunteers to PACEM, Kennedy Brooks, PACEM's executive director and community partner, was going to meet with Riley Carter, Madison House's newly appointed program director, to develop and sign the Community Partner Agreement, which detailed the volunteer experience and logistics for the upcoming school year. Brooks and Carter also had to agree on training and communication procedures for the year, which had historically included mandatory training at Madison House and weekly site e-mail updates. All aspects of the volunteer experience were subject to change each year, and Carter had expressed an interest in making a few changes, but Brooks believed the current structure was ideal. How would the discussion go, and what would the outcomes be? \u0000Excerpt \u0000UVA-QA-0803 \u0000Rev. Jan. 12, 2015 \u0000MADISON HOUSE: RILEY CARTER \u0000Riley Carter, Madison House's program director for People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry (PACEM), was excited about the upcoming meeting with Kennedy Brooks, PACEM's executive director and community partner. Carter, a fourth-year student at the University of Virginia (U.Va.), had recently been chosen as the program director for PACEM and hoped this year to overhaul and expand the volunteer experience at PACEM. The previous week, in anticipation of the meeting with Brooks, Carter had sent an e-mail outlining the topics of discussion (Exhibit 1). \u0000Madison House \u0000Madison House was a student-run nonprofit organization that coordinated U.Va. student volunteers, developed student leaders, and built community partnerships. It served as the unofficial community service hub for U.Va. students. Over 3,000 students volunteered their time each week within the Charlottesville, Virginia, community, and they accounted for over 110,000 hours of service each year. \u0000. . .","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130454826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Distribution of Economic Resources to Children in Germany","authors":"Maximilian Stockhausen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3013631","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3013631","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the redistributive impact of private and public childcare provision and education on children’s resources in Germany between 2009 and 2013. Combining survey data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) with administrative data, extended disposable income inequality is found to be significantly lower than disposable cash income inequality across all years. At the same time, publicly provided childcare and schooling notably decrease inequality among children such that it cushions cash income inequality. One major reason for this effect is that public in-kind benefits profit children living with single parents, which are deprived in terms of cash incomes, most.","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"20 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132267827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Letter and Encouragement: Does Information Increase Post-Secondary Enrollment of Ui Recipients?","authors":"Andrew C. Barr, S. Turner","doi":"10.1257/POL.20160570","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/POL.20160570","url":null,"abstract":"For individuals who experience job loss, enrollment in postsecondary programs may provide an opportunity to improve future employment outcomes. However, decisions to enroll may be hampered by insufficient information about the benefits and costs and the necessary steps and assistance available to facilitate such investments. Using variation in the dissemination and timing of letters sent to Unemployment Insurance (UI) recipients containing this information, we find that individuals sent the information are 40 percent more likely to enroll. These findings suggest that well coordinated information interventions delivered with institutional support may be more effective than raising the generosity of existing government programs in increasing participation. (JEL E24, E32, I23, I26, J24, J31, J65)","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122160823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Building Dreams: The Impact of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program on Educational Aspirations in Colombia","authors":"Sandra García, Arturo Harker, Jorge Cuartas Ricaurte","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2927139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2927139","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes the impact of a large scale conditional cash transfer (CCT) program on the educational aspirations of parents and children in poor households. The program, in addition to providing cash subsidies to the poorest households, delivered information about the returns to education and encouraged interaction between beneficiaries, social leaders, and professionals. Using data from the quasi-experimental impact evaluation of the program and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find a positive impact for the CCT on educational aspirations for both children and parents. Particularly, parents and children were 10.9 and 20.2 percentage points more likely to aspire to attain post-secondary education due to exposition to the program, respectively. Furthermore, we find that the effect was larger for the most vulnerable households: the poorest, least educated, and most pessimistic. Based on the results, we discuss policy implications that could boost long-term educational impacts of similar programs. ***** Este articulo analiza el impacto de un programa de transferencias monetarias condicionadas (CCT, por sus siglas en ingles) en las aspiraciones educativas de padres y ninos en hogares en situacion de pobreza. El programa, ademas de otorgar una transferencia monetaria a los hogares mas pobres, entrego informacion sobre los retornos de la educacion y fomento la interaccion entre los beneficiarios con lideres sociales y profesionales. Utilizando informacion cuasi-experimental de la evaluacion de impacto del programa y una estrategia de diferencias-en-diferencias, encontramos que el CCT tuvo un impacto positivo sobre las aspiraciones educativas de padres y ninos. En particular, la exposicion al programa incremento la probabilidad de que padres y ninos aspiraran alcanzar educacion universitaria en 10.9 y 20.2 puntos porcentuales respectivamente. Sumado a esto, encontramos que el efecto fue mayor para los hogares mas vulnerables: los mas pobres, los menos educados y los mas pesimistas. Con base en los resultados, discutimos implicaciones de politica que pueden incrementar los impactos de largo plazo de programas similares.","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116694163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trade, Poverty Eradication, and the Sustainable Development Goals","authors":"I. Brambilla, Guido Porto","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2893421","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2893421","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate if trade can help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of poverty eradication using microeconomic and macroeconomic mechanisms and the effects of trade and trade policy on consumer prices, producer prices, and wages. As these mechanisms affect the real income of households, they determine the likelihood that a household may be lifted out of or pushed into poverty. The impacts of trade on growth and longer-term consequences of trade liberalization were also analyzed using data from African countries. While there is sound evidence that trade can be pro-poor, there is significant heterogeneity in the poverty impacts of trade, both across households and countries. This highlights the importance of complementary policies such as infrastructure, trade facilitation, and social protection.","PeriodicalId":196905,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Government Expenditures & Welfare Programs (Topic)","volume":"145 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115690978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}