Some of the ideas in this paper were inspired by communications with David Card, Patricia Ruggles, and Bruce Meyer. I am also grateful to Daniel McMurrer for providing me with spreadsheets describing the Urban Institute's methodology for estimating the effects of welfare work requirements. Ken Kline provided excellent research assistance. The research for this paper was conducted with financial...

This issue of the Journal features two papers, Community Rating of Health Insurance and Different Benefit Packages by Matthias Kifman and Alternative Health Insurance Schemes: A Welfare Comparison by Hansen and Keiding, that examine the welfare implications of permitting voluntary supplementary insurance in a regime with a community-rated, compulsory basic insurance package. This is a critical ...

This paper presents an experimental study of the effects of polls on voters’ welfare. The analysis shows that polls have a different effect on closely divided and lopsided divided electorates. The data show that in closely divided electorates (and only for these electorates) the provision of information on the voters’ distribution of preferences significantly raises the participation of subject...

The recent reform of the federal welfare system was meant to encourage recipients to leave welfare and enter the workforce. If the reform is successful there are likely to be effects felt throughout the low–skilled end of the labor market. As former welfare recipients enter the labor market, they may exert downward pressure on wages or displace employment of others already in the labor market. ...

This paper analyzes the effects of ATM surcharges on deployment and welfare, in a model where banks compete for ATM and banking services. Foreign fees, surcharges and the interchange fee are endogenously determined. We find situations in which surcharges are welfare enhancing. Under strategic fee setting, the increase in deployment caused by surcharging might compensate the surplus loss caused ...

We estimate a model of ticket resale that incorporates strategic effort choices by consumers and brokers in the primary market, rational anticipation of resale activity, and the resulting resale market equilibrium. Estimation is based on a unique dataset that combines detailed sales data from both the primary and secondary markets for a sample of major rock concerts. We use the estimated model ...

A framework is developed for examining the price and welfare effects of the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops. In the short run, non-GM grain generally becomes another niche product. However, more profound market effects are observed under some reasonable parameterizations. In the long run, consumer and producer welfare are usually greater after the introduction of GM technology. ...

September 2002 Abstract This paper, in a quantitative way, studies the macroeconomic and welfare effects of introducing a progressive expenditure tax in a situation with the aging of the Japanese population. The paper simulates capital accumulation and social welfare by taking account of the general equilibrium effects of intragenerational inequality in order to predict the future aged society....

Of all of the welfare reforms that were implemented during the 1990s, time limits may represent the single greatest break from past policy. This paper expands on what is known about this important welfare reform measure by exploiting the predictions from Grogger and Michalopoulos (2003) to estimate the effects of time limits on welfare use, employment, labor supply, earnings, and income among f...

In this paper we analyse the effects of microfinance programs upon household welfare in Vietnam. Our analytical framework builds upon the rural household models of Singh et al. (1986) and Rosenzweig (1990). Data on 470 households across 25 villages was collected using a quasiexperiment survey approach to overcome self-selection bias. In our econometric analysis the welfare effects of microfinan...