Joan Costa-Font, Sergi Jiménez-Martín, Cristina Vilaplana-Prieto
{"title":"Returns to Caring? Health and Well-Being Effects of Subsidized Long-Term Care","authors":"Joan Costa-Font, Sergi Jiménez-Martín, Cristina Vilaplana-Prieto","doi":"10.1002/pam.70136","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.70136","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We estimate the health and well-being effects of subsidized access to long-term care (LTC). Our analysis exploits the staggered implementation of Spain's 2007 System of Autonomy and Care for Dependent People (SAAD), which expanded publicly funded and universal LTC subsidies and supports, as well as its subsequent reform. Using two decades of administrative and survey data and leveraging exogenous regional and individual-level variation in program exposure, we find that access to SAAD benefits reduces the care receiver's depressive symptoms by approximately 10 percentage points, increases its survival probability by 2.6–3 percentage points, and raises its life satisfaction by 0.24–0.50 scale points. Cost-effectiveness estimates indicate that the implied cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained lies below commonly accepted efficiency thresholds for public health spending in Europe. These findings document sizeable health returns and efficiency gains from publicly subsidized LTC provision.</p>","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pam.70136","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149172864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Seoyoon Ahn, Matthew Freedman, David Phillips, Atheendar Venkataramani
{"title":"Means-Tested Public Transportation Subsidies: Causal Evidence and Implications","authors":"Seoyoon Ahn, Matthew Freedman, David Phillips, Atheendar Venkataramani","doi":"10.1002/pam.70134","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.70134","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper evaluates the effects of a novel and large-scale program in King County, Washington, that provides fare-free public transportation to individuals with low incomes. Using both experimental and quasi-experimental methods together with rich administrative and survey data, we find that providing free transit has very limited effects on mobility or downstream outcomes related to health and well-being. We examine possible explanations for the modest effects, which contrast with findings from prior research. Our results suggest that changes in the external environment post-COVID-19 pandemic, including changes in norms around fare evasion, reduced the price elasticity of demand for travel by transit among individuals with low incomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pam.70134","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149172863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
David Fuente, Richard Mulwa, Mbutu Mwaura, Josiah Gitu, Joseph Cook
{"title":"Forgive Us Our Sins—Experimental Evidence on Arrears Forgiveness and Bill Payment From Nairobi, Kenya","authors":"David Fuente, Richard Mulwa, Mbutu Mwaura, Josiah Gitu, Joseph Cook","doi":"10.1002/pam.70132","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.70132","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Energy and water utilities need financial resources to maintain existing infrastructure, increase capacity to meet growing demand, meet environmental regulations, and invest in climate resilience. Considerable attention has been paid to innovative means of financing the transition to universal access to water and sanitation services and the global transition to a clean energy future. This paper examines the foundation of utility finance—customer bill payment. We partner with Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company to test the impact of an unconditional arrears forgiveness program on customer bill payment behavior. To our knowledge, this is the first study to experimentally test the impact of an arrears management program. We find that providing customers unconditional arrears forgiveness was not effective at improving customer bill payment and, in fact, made bill payment worse in the short run. Customers in our treatment group were less likely to make a payment towards their bill, less likely to pay their full bill on time, and accumulated more arrears over the 6 months following our intervention than untreated households. Our results suggest that one-off debt amnesty may inadvertently reduce compliance, and that utilities should consider conditional or alternative assistance measures.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"45 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Labor Market Outcomes Under State Paid Family Leave: A Multistate Analysis","authors":"Min Sun Park, Solomon W. Polachek","doi":"10.1002/pam.70130","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.70130","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We estimate the labor market effects of state paid family leave (PFL) using CPS ASEC data from 1995 through 2024 and a cell-level staggered difference-in-differences design. PFL raises young women's labor force participation by 2.25 percentage points. The gain is concentrated among women with an own child under age 5, for whom participation rises by 3.76 percentage points. Among young women overall, unconditional weekly hours rise by 0.54 h. Young fathers of children under age 5 show a 1.59 percentage point participation gain. The young women's participation result is robust to a placebo permutation test, to leaving out any single treated state, and to a pre-policy balance check consistent with parallel pre-trends.</p>","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"45 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pam.70130","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Notes from the Editor","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/pam.70135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.70135","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"45 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149048071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"APPAM Announcements","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/pam.70131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.70131","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"45 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149048069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"45th Year Data","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/pam.70133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.70133","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"45 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149048070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Administrative Burden and the Access–Fraud Trade-Off","authors":"Elizabeth Bell, Sebastian Jilke","doi":"10.1002/pam.70128","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.70128","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Administrative burden represents political choices embedded in policy design that affect how people perceive and experience government. While policymakers frequently invoke fraud prevention to justify imposing burdens in welfare programs, this rhetoric embodies an unacknowledged normative judgment about the relative costs of fraud and abuse versus program exclusion for eligible beneficiaries. This study quantifies this <i>access–fraud trade-off</i> in means-tested social welfare programs through a contingent valuation experiment (<i>N</i> = 2250). We find that respondents were willing to accept approximately 192 ineligible recipients receiving benefits in exchange for 1000 eligible beneficiaries not being excluded due to administrative burdens. While we find no direct evidence that psychological distance (i.e., randomized exposure to “welfare” vs. specific programs) affects this trade-off across the full sample, political affiliation is a significant moderator in our exploratory analysis. Unlike Democrats/Independents, Republicans demonstrate substantially lower tolerance for potential fraud when evaluating abstract “welfare” compared to specific programs like unemployment insurance. Experience with means-tested welfare programs, which reduces psychological distance, has a similar moderating effect. These findings extend construal level theory to administrative burden preferences and contribute to the policy implementation literature by quantifying the access–fraud trade-off—a metric largely absent from academic and policy discussions despite its importance for program legitimacy.</p>","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"45 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pam.70128","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148901931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters","authors":"Nadine Lehrer","doi":"10.1002/pam.70127","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.70127","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"45 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148809844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Referee Acknowledgments","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/pam.70126","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.70126","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"45 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148809841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}