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It has been over a decade since the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was passed in 1996 with the intention of “ending welfare as we know it.” The main cash assistance entitlement program that had been in place since the 1930s, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), was eliminated in favor of the non-entitlement Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. This drastic change occurred at a time of economic growth, where employment and wages rose across the United States. Initially, caseloads fell dramatically.

Governance is becoming an increasingly important concept in European theoretical debates and in political practice as a new way to manage public policies, since the public sector reforms in the 1980s. However, the debate in Latin America has different characteristics than in Europe, so it is necessary to provide a critical review of the proposed agenda for the transformation of the state in the region, and of the transfer of the concept of governance by multilateral agencies. To understand these changes, this chapter examines three key areas of reforms in Latin America and the privatization of public services, new social policy proposals, and the decentralization process. This will help us understand the tension between normative models and specific patterns of governance that prevail in Latin America.

I trace and explain how the ratcheting of corporate mergers and deregulation transformed the structure of elite relations in the United States from 1960 to 2010. Prior to the 1970s there was a high degree of elite unity and consensus, enforced by Federal regulation and molded by structure of U.S. government, around a set of policies and practices: interventionism abroad, progressive tax rates, heavy state investment in infrastructure and education, and a rising level of social spending. I find that economic decline, the loss of geopolitical hegemony, and mobilization from the left and right are unable to account for the specific policies that both Democratic and Republican Administrations furthered since the 1970s or for the uneven decline in state capacity that were intended and unintended consequences of the post-1960s political realignment and policy changes. Instead, the realignment and restructuring of elites and classes that first transformed politics and degraded government in the 1970s in turn made possible further shifts in the capacities of American political actors in both the state and civil society. I explain how that process operated and how it produced specific policy outcomes and created new limits on mass political mobilization while creating opportunities for autarkic elites to appropriate state powers and resources for themselves.

Job training, as traditionally conceptualized, is intended to improve the employment and earnings of disadvantaged individuals. Both theory and practice have approached the problem by segmenting the roles and responsibilities of the key stakeholders: the individual, the employer, and civil society. Such segmentation is problematic because it removes stakeholders from their contexts, and ignores the holistic and complex nature of the underlying problems and their remedies. Reframed as a form of business and community development, job training can focus on capacity building, stakeholder involvement, and expanded notions of skill achievement and geographic scope, thereby addressing stakeholder interests in context. The three cases presented in this chapter describe such reframing: from increasing human capital to building human capacity; from a partnership or individual business focus to a multi-stakeholder approach; and from job and employer-specific skill development to that which is multi-phased and geographically dispersed. Complexity theory will be used to explain these developments.

In the presence of government procurement, one important driving force behind a poor farmer entering into sales format agreements is to improve profits. In this study, the authors examine two widely used sales formats, namely resale format and agent format, to investigate how parameters influence the optimal sales format selection and decision equilibriums of supply chain members under the scenarios with or without the buyer's poverty alleviation efforts.

This paper adopts the Stackelberg game-theoretical approach to examine the interactions between the farmer from poor/rural areas and the buyer.

The authors find that under certain conditions, the optimal sales format of the poor farmer and buyer can be consistent, which eliminates conflicts in the sales format selection. In addition, with the buyer's poverty alleviation effort, the poor farmer and buyer can achieve the Pareto improvement, which is a win–win outcome for them. The authors also find that the market price in government procurement is independent of competition, which is consistent with practical observations.

It is the first study to investigate the optimal sales format selection given government procurement as a poverty alleviation effort which is in competition with a firm's regular channel.

Numerous scholars have studied the propensity and related determinants of marital infidelity across socioeconomic and demographic groups. However, the broader social and economic consequences of infidelity remain an unexplored question, particularly the macroeconomic consequences from the individual impacts on families and households. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using income data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to analyze the relationship between the probability of infidelity and income and second, to quantify the cost of marital infidelity on individual families and taxpayers. The results confirm that infidelity makes individual households poorer, but goes further to reveal widespread negative externalities that fall to taxpayers from the consequences of family fragmentation.

The results of this study indicate a review of government policy since numerous government policies contradict the incentive to stay married. Future research should consider additional estimations of the full range of costs related to infidelity and family fragmentation with particular focus on the public programs that may absorb the brunt of the negative externalities resulting from divorce.

This research confirms earlier research that infidelity has a high probability of causing divorce. Combined with this research, the analysis confirms a statistically significant negative relationship between infidelity and income and that when infidelity causes divorce, the results are substantial public economic and social costs. By definition public economic and social costs are borne by society, resulting in increased taxpayer burdens for society at large.

Previously, the consequences of infidelity were a largely unexplored question. There had been some work on the probability of infidelity but little beyond this. Further, there had been minimal literature on the social efficiency of infidelity, especially research focussing on the external costs imposed on third parties such as children and taxpayers (Smith, 2012). This work took earlier research further by first confirming the negative impact on household income based on the probability of infidelity. Additionally, this is the only study that has examined the economic consequences of divorce due to infidelity. This research confirms that the presence of infidelity, especially when it leads to divorce, results in substantial economic and social externalities resulting from family fragmentation. Future research would benefit from a more in depth understanding of the characteristics that relate to the increased probability of infidelity, separate from and in conjunction with divorce. Furthermore, examining costs as they relate to specific programs, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, may clarify the impact of family fragmentation on specific programs. Additionally, the results from this study can be incorporated into larger sets of findings focussing on government policy to better understand the full range of social implications from infidelity.

Future research should consider additional estimations of the full range of costs related to infidelity and family fragmentation, with particular focus on the public programs that may absorb the brunt of the negative externalities resulting from divorce. The most pertinent policies influencing the rate of marriage and divorce in the USA are the income tax code, Social Security spousal and survivor benefits, the Earned Income Tax Credit, child support enforcement, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, food stamps, Medical, Supplemental Security Income, and WIC (Burstein, 2007). A review of these policies and their incentive structure related to family cohesiveness should be considered as a part of larger cost/benefit analysis of these programs.

This work took earlier research further by first confirming the negative impact on household income based on the probability of infidelity. Additionally, this is the only study that has examined the economic consequences of divorce due to infidelity. This research confirms that the presence of infidelity, especially when it leads to divorce, results in substantial economic and social externalities resulting from family fragmentation.

The total number of widows in India exceeds 33 million. Yet, despite the large number of women affected, little is known about their living conditions. Widows are particularly vulnerable and deserve special attention within the study of public policy and economic development. This paper is based on an analytical research study conducted by interviewing 300 randomly selected rural widows of all age groups from rural parts of the Vidarbha region. An attempt is made to achieve better understanding of social and economic condition of widows, by focusing attention on widowhood as a social problem. This study explores the dominant ideological construction of widowhood in the context of patriarchy, religion, and customs. Nearly 69% widows were illiterate, 96% had economic problems, and 47% faced discrimination due to caste and religious obligations. Elderly widows constituted 49% of the sample, age had placed them in a difficult position to discrimination, dependence, oppression, and health problems. Among elderly widows there was a wide spread feeling of psychological neglect and isolation. The paper also discusses some key issues of social, economic policy, and action in support of widows’ property rights, social security, employment, social identity, and participation in society.

The study identifies factors that account for high levels of deprivation which includes limited freedom to remarry, insecure property rights, living arrangement of elderly, social stigma, restricted employment opportunities, and lack of social support. The study extensively deals with social work intervention aspects in helping the widows and discusses social, economic, and policy implications of the problems of widows.