This report reevaluates PROGRESA’s targeting methods since the program began adding beneficiary households through a process called “densification.” The authors first evaluate PROGRESA’s accuracy in targeting both at the community and household levels. Second, they evaluate the targeting in terms of its impact on poverty alleviation relative to other feasible methods assuming the same total bud...

The paper extends our previous class analysis of the household and family life to include children, interactions between class structures of households and enterprises, struggles over the family budget, and father's household labor. Analysis show how the good and bad of family life are connected to class. Introduction Since the 1994 publication of Bringing It All Back Home, commentators have ra...

In this study, we attempt to understand how household budget allocations across various expenditure categories change when the economy is in recession or expansion. The common assumption is that a household’s tastes would not change as a function of economic conditions and therefore any adjustments in expenditure patterns during economic contractions/expansions would simply be due to changes in...

This paper explores the statistical properties of household consumption-expenditure budget shares distributions (HBSDs) —defined as the share of household total expenditure spent for purchasing a specific category of commodities— for a large sample of Italian households in the period 1989-2004. We find that HBSDs are fairly stable over time for each specific category, but profoundly heterogeneo...

The views expressed in this publication do not represent any official position on the part of the Social Policy Research Centre, but are the views of the individual author(s). Executive Summary • This report presents updated estimates of the incomes required by Australian working families to meet their needs in 2003. The research is based on earlier SPRC research commissioned in 1995 by the Dep...

Using stochastic forecasting techniques, this paper assesses the consequences for public finances of changes in age and household structures in Denmark over the period 2008–2037. Focusing on components of welfare provisions and tax payments with noticeable differences across age and household status, we show that, based on a point forecast, the fiscal impact of changes in household structures a...

Case-ascertained household transmission studies, in which households including an 'index case' are recruited and followed up, are invaluable to understanding the epidemiology of influenza. We used a simulation approach parameterized with data from household transmission studies to evaluate alternative study designs. We compared studies that relied on self-reported illness in household contacts ...