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We examine how means-tested childcare subsidies affect parental labor supply. Using the introduction of reduced childcare prices for low-income families in Norway in 2015, we show that these subsidies may have the unintended effect of discouraging work rather than promoting employment. First, structural labor supply simulations suggest that a negative parental labor supply effect dominates, ex ante. Ex post, we find a small and insignificant effect of means-tested childcare subsidies on parental labor supply in the reform year. We find no statistically significant bunching around the income limits in subsequent years, but we do find negative labor supply effects in subsequent expansions of the reform. Our results suggest that in a context where both parental employment and participation in formal childcare are high, means-tested childcare subsidies may have unintended parental labor supply effects.

The 2007/2008 food prices hike has increased the interest in social safety nets programmes to fight food insecurity. Targeting the most in need is central to achieve effectiveness of such interventions. In 2009 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, a food voucher (FV) programme targeted the 25 000 most vulnerable households (8.3% of the population). Targeting used a two-stage process: first geographical selection of poorest districts (90 000 households); then, in those districts, identification of the most vulnerable households according to a proxy-means test (PMT). Targeted households were entitled to receive FV for 1 year. A first survey was conducted at the beginning of the FV distribution on a representative sample of 2273 households drawn from the poorest districts. One year later a second survey, conducted on a subsample of same households (n = 901), identified those who actually received FV (beneficiary). The performance of the whole process was assessed against household food expenditure, used as the reference measure for vulnerability with a cut-off point of 1513 FCFA (corresponding to the 8.3th percentile of the distribution of expenditure). The ‘normalized share of transfers going to vulnerable households’(NSTVH), i.e. proportion of FVs allocated to households below the cut-point, was the main criteria of judgement. Almost twice as many FV were allocated to vulnerable households as compared with a theoretical random distribution all over Ouagadougou (NSTVH = 1.85). When considering the sole targeted districts the NSTVH was only 0.84 (i.e. no more effective than a random distribution), meaning that the geographical stage was effective to select vulnerable districts while the PMT did not perform well to identify the most vulnerable households in those districts. Results could have been improved if only targeted households had received FV (NSTVH = 2.61 and 1.18 for the whole Ouagadougou and targeted districts, respectively). Improved targeting procedures or alternate targeting instruments are needed. En 2007-2008, la hausse du prix des denrées alimentaires a accru l’intérêt pour les programmes d’assistance sociale permettant de lutter contre l’insécurité alimentaire. Le ciblage des plus nécessiteux est essentiel si l’on veut que de telles interventions soient efficaces. En 2009 à Ouagadougou au Burkina Faso, un programme de Coupons Alimentaires (FV) ciblait les 25 000 foyers les plus vulnérables (8.3% de la population). Le ciblage était basé sur un processus à 2 niveaux: d’abord la sélection géographique des quartiers les plus pauvres (90 000 foyers), puis dans ces quartiers l’identification des foyers les plus vulnérables, selon la ‘vérification indicative des conditions de ressources (PMT). Les foyers ciblés avaient le droit de recevoir les Coupons Alimentaires durant une année. Une première enquête a été réalisée au début de la distribution des Coupons sur un échantillon représentatif de 2273 foyers issus des quartiers les plus pauvres. Un an plus tard, une seconde enquête, réalisée sur un sous-échantillon des mêmes foyers (n=901), a identifié ceux qui recevaient réellement les Coupons (bénéficiaires). Les résultats du processus complet ont été évalués en fonction des dépenses alimentaires des foyers utilisées comme la référence de mesure de la vulnérabilité avec un point de rupture de 1513 FCFA (correspondant au 83.3ème centile de la distribution des dépenses). La ‘part normalisée des transferts allant aux foyers vulnérables’ (NSTVH) c.a.d le pourcentage des Coupons alloués aux foyers situés en dessous du point de rupture a été le principal critère de jugement. Presque deux fois plus de Coupons ont été alloués aux foyers vulnérables, si l’on compare avec une distribution théorique aléatoire dans tout Ouagadougou (NSTVH=1.85). Si l’on considère seulement les quartiers ciblés, le NSTVH était seulement de 0.84 (c.a.d pas plus efficace qu’une distribution aléatoire), ce qui signifie que le niveau géographique s’est révélé efficace pour la sélection des quartiers vulnérables tandis que le PMT n’était pas parvenu à identifier correctement les foyers les plus vulnérables dans ces quartiers. On aurait eu de meilleurs résultats si seuls les foyers ciblés avaient reçu les coupons (NSTVH=2.61 et 1.18 pour toute la ville de Ouagadougou et pour les quartiers ciblés respectivement). Il s’agit soit d’améliorer les processus de ciblage, soit de faire appel à des outils de ciblage alternatifs. La subida de los precios de alimentos en 2007/2008 ha aumentado el interés en los programas de redes de seguridad social para luchar contra la inseguridad alimentaria. Enfocar la ayuda a los más necesitados es fundamental para lograr la efectividad de tales intervenciones. En 2009 en Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, un programa de bonos de alimentos (BAs) se dirigió a los 25,000 hogares más vulnerables (8.3% de la población). El enfoque utilizó un proceso de dos etapas: primero la selección geográfica de los distritos más pobres (~90,000 hogares); luego, en esos distritos, la identificación de los hogares más vulnerables de acuerdo con una prueba por medio de representante (PMR). Los hogares seleccionados tenían derecho a recibir los BAs durante un año. Una primera encuesta se llevó a cabo a principios de la distribución de los BAs en una muestra representativa de 2,273 hogares procedentes de los distritos más pobres. Un año más tarde, una segunda encuesta, llevada a cabo en una sub-muestra de los mismos hogares (n=901), identificó aquellos que recibieron en realidad los BA (beneficiarios). El rendimiento de todo el proceso se evaluó contra el gasto en alimentación de los hogares, usado como medida de referencia para la vulnerabilidad con un punto de corte de 1513 FCFA (correspondientes al percentil 8.3 de la distribución del gasto). La ‘proporción normalizada de las transferencias que van a los hogares vulnerables’ (PNTHV), es decir, la proporción de BAs asignados a los hogares por debajo del punto de corte, fue el principal criterio de juicio. Casi el doble de BAs fueron asignados a hogares vulnerables en comparación con una distribución aleatoria en todo Ouagadougou (PNTHV =1.85). Al considerar solamente los distritos seleccionados el PNTHV fue sólo de 0.84 (es decir, no es más eficaz que una distribución aleatoria), lo quesignifica que el escenario geográfico fue eficaz para seleccionar los distritos vulnerables mientras que las PMRs no se desempeñaron bien para identificar los hogares más vulnerables en esos distritos. Los resultados podrían haber mejorado si solamente los hogares que fueron objetivo hubieran recibido BAs (PNTHV =2.61 y 1.18 para todo Ouagadougou y los distritos direccionados, respectivamente). Se necesitan procedimientos de orientación mejorados o instrumentos de focalización alternativos. 2007年到 2008 年的食品价格上涨使人们更加关注打击食品 不安全的社会安全项目。在这类干预措施中, 找出最需要帮助 的群体是增加有效性的核心。2009 年, 布基纳法索的瓦加杜 古实施了一个针对25000 最脆弱家庭的食物券（FV）项目 （占人口总数的8.3%） 。确定目标家庭分为两步： 首先是用 地理标准筛选最贫穷的地区 （大约 90000 个家庭） ； 之后在 这些地区采用代理检测方法 （PMT） 确认出最脆弱的家庭。 这些筛选出家庭能够得到一年的FV。在FV分配的初期进行了 第一次调查, 样本是来自最贫困地区的有代表性的2273 个家 庭。一年后的第二次调查从第一次样本家庭中选择家庭 （n= 901）, 以确认真实收到FV （获益） 的人数。整个过程的成果 与家庭食品支出相比进行评估, 作为脆弱的参考标准, 分界点 为1513 非洲法郎 （相当于支出分布的83%） 。”转移到脆 弱家庭的正常份额” （NSTVH）, 即FV分配给分界点以下的 家庭的份额是主要判断标准。与理论上在瓦加杜古进行随机 分配相比, 分配给脆弱家庭的多了一倍 （NSTVH=1.85） 。 但 考虑到单一的目标地区, NSTVH 只有 0.84 （不比随机分配更 有效）, 这意味着通过地理选择的那一步选择脆弱地区是有效 的, 但PMT 并没有很好地在这些地区找出脆弱家庭。如果全 部是目标家庭获得FV, 结果还能改善 （瓦加杜古整个地区和 目标地区的NSTVH 分别为2.61 和1.18） 。因此还需要继续 改善目标确定过程或者改变选择目标的方式。

Two rather surprising anomalies relating to statistical power occur in testing mediation. First, in a model with no direct effect for which the total effect and indirect effect are identical, the power for the test of the total effect can be dramatically smaller than the power for the test of the indirect effect. Second, when there is a direct effect of a causal variable on the outcome controlling for the mediator, the power of the test of the indirect effect is often considerably greater than the power of the test of the direct effect, even when the two are of the same magnitude. We try to explain the reasons for these anomalies and how they affect practice.

Strategies based on growth and inequality reduction require a long-run horizon, and this paper therefore argues that those strategies need to be complemented by poverty alleviation programs. With regards to such programs, informality in Latin America and the Caribbean is a primary obstacle to carry out means testing income-support programs, and countries in the region have therefore mostly relied on proxy means testing mechanisms. This paper studies the relative effectiveness of these and other mechanisms by way of a formal model in which workers choose between job opportunities in the formal and informal sectors. Although the means testing mechanism allows for a more pro-poor design of transfers, it distorts labor decisions made by workers. On the other hand, (exogenous) proxy means testing does not cause distortions, but its pro-poor quality is constrained by the power of observable characteristics to infer income levels. However, since taxation is necessary to fund programs, redistribution becomes less effective, especially for programs other than means testing. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these results for the design of more efficient targeting programs.

Since its foundation in 1948, the UK’s modern social security system has become increasingly means-tested, even though the intention of its conceptual founder, Sir William Beveridge, was that it should be overwhelmingly insurance based. This commentary looks at some of the key factors that have driven the change and briefly asks whether what remains of the national insurance system should be preserved.

We need to make substantial changes to how we conduct research. First, in response to heightened concern that our published research literature is incomplete and untrustworthy, we need new requirements to ensure research integrity. These include prespecification of studies whenever possible, avoidance of selection and other inappropriate dataanalytic practices, complete reporting, and encouragement of replication. Second, in response to renewed recognition of the severe flaws of null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST), we need to shift from reliance on NHST to estimation and other preferred techniques. The new statistics refers to recommended practices, including estimation based on effect sizes, confidence intervals, and meta-analysis. The techniques are not new, but adopting them widely would be new for many researchers, as well as highly beneficial. This article explains why the new statistics are important and offers guidance for their use. It describes an eight-step new-statistics strategy for research with integrity, which starts with formulation of research questions in estimation terms, has no place for NHST, and is aimed at building a cumulative quantitative discipline.

In the high-dimensional setting, this article considers three interrelated problems: (a) testing the equality of two covariance matrices and ; (b) recovering the support of ; and (c) testing the equality of and row by row. We propose a new test for testing the hypothesis H ₀: and investigate its theoretical and numerical properties. The limiting null distribution of the test statistic is derived and the power of the test is studied. The test is shown to enjoy certain optimality and to be especially powerful against sparse alternatives. The simulation results show that the test significantly outperforms the existing methods both in terms of size and power. Analysis of a prostate cancer dataset is carried out to demonstrate the application of the testing procedures. When the null hypothesis of equal covariance matrices is rejected, it is often of significant interest to further investigate how they differ from each other. Motivated by applications in genomics, we also consider recovering the support of and testing the equality of the two covariance matrices row by row. New procedures are introduced and their properties are studied. Applications to gene selection are also discussed. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

This paper reports an experiment in 640 Indonesian villages on three approaches to target the poor: proxy means tests (PMT), where assets are used to predict consumption; community targeting, where villagers rank everyone from richest to poorest; and a hybrid. Defining poverty based on PPP$2 per capita consumption, community targeting and the hybrid perform somewhat worse in identifying the poor than PMT, though not by enough to significantly affect poverty outcomes for a typical program. Elite capture does not explain these results. Instead, communities appear to apply a different concept of poverty. Consistent with this finding, community targeting results in higher satisfaction.

In this paper we demonstrate that in addition to its acknowledged screening role, workfare—namely, introducing work (or training) requirements for welfare eligibility in means-tested programs—also serves to mitigate income misreporting by welfare claimants. It achieves this goal by effectively increasing the marginal cost of earning extra income in the shadow economy for claimants who satisfy the work requirement. We show that when misreporting is sufficiently prevalent, supplementing a means-tested transfer system with work requirements is socially desirable.

We propose a dynamic non-cooperative framework for long-term-care (LTC) decisions of families and use it to evaluate LTC policy options for the U.S. We first document the importance of informal caregiving and economic determinants of care arrangements. We then build a heterogeneous-agents model with imperfectly-altruistic overlapping generations to account for the patterns we find. A key innovation is the availability of informal care (IC), which is determined through intra-family bargaining. This opens up a new margin in response to policy and allows for informal insurance through home-production of care. Our calibrated model captures the observed care arrangements well. We study the implications of non-means-tested IC and formal care (FC) subsidies as well as changes to means-tested Medicaid. We find that IC responds strongly to these policies. An IC subsidy substantially reduces reliance on Medicaid, while the reduction of tax revenues due to lower labour supply by caregivers is modest. There are large welfare gains from a combination of IC and FC subsidies, even when combined with a reduction of the Medicaid program.