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This article analyzes transitions into and out of social assistance (SA) in Canada. We estimate dynamic probit models, controlling for endogenous initial conditions and unobserved heterogeneity, using longitudinal data extracted from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for the years 1993–2010. The data indicate that there are substantial provincial differences in SA participation with higher participation rates in the eastern part of the country. However, since the mid-1990s, participation rates have fallen substantially in all provinces with only a modest increase at the end of the observation period. Results from the probit models suggest that there is a significant time dependency in social assistance, even after controlling for endogenous initial conditions and unobserved heterogeneity. The extent of this state dependence varies across provinces.

In this paper, I examine the concept of ‘vulnerability’ within the context of income mobility of the poor. While the concept of poverty is well developed, the concept of vulnerability is less established in the economic literature. I test for the dynamics of vulnerable households in the United Kingdom using Waves 1–12 of the British Household Panel Survey and find that, of three different types of risks for which I test, household-specific shocks and economy-wide aggregate shocks have the greatest impact on consumption, in comparison to shocks to the income stream. I find vulnerable households up to at least 10 percentile points above the poverty line. Savings and earnings from a second job are not significantly associated with smoothing consumption of all vulnerable households. The results strongly indicate that income transfers and benefits assist the vulnerable in smoothing consumption. Thus, traditional poverty alleviating policies are not likely to assist the vulnerable.

This chapter analyses the relationship between individuals’ poverty situation and conjugal status (divorced, separated, in a free union, or legally married) from 1996 to 2014. It describes different marriage property regimes that exist in state laws in Mexico. Couples living in free union are found to be poorer than those legally married, indicating that marriage may help to protect families more than cohabitation laws. When comparing divorced men and women, women show higher signs of being poorer than men; this could be because the law establishes that the assets in case of divorce accrue to whoever works and pays for them, and given that many women work in the unpaid sectors, men are the owners of the assets. Having no consideration of these facts in the law may create poverty with gender bias in the case of divorce. Additionally, there is lack of data in administrative records of marriage and divorce about couples’ assets, children, and employment status before and after the marriage, so we discuss the importance that in a near future this could be register to facilitate law and policy-makers identifying what contributes to create poverty with gender bias as a results of family laws, and correct them.

Regional minimum income (RMI) schemes have been a fundamental tool for fighting poverty in Spain at a regional level. However, the redistributive power of these schemes has not been as effective as was expected in reducing inequality during the last decades. On the other hand, the introduction of the new ‘Minimum Vital Income’ (MVI) by the Spanish Central Government represents a novel measure for fighting poverty, by guaranteeing minimum incomes from a national perspective as a policy response to the asymmetric impact of the COVID-19 crisis upon income distribution. Using EUROMOD,¹ this paper simulates both the distributional effects of the introduction of the MVI and what the effects on inequality and poverty in each Spanish region would be if the national scheme were to substitute the current regional schemes. The results referring to MVI introduction indicate that inequality and poverty would decrease in all dimensions: incidence, intensity, and inequality among the poor (Foster–Greer–Thorbecke poverty measures). Additionally, the negative effects of RMI elimination would be offset by the positive effects of MVI introduction for most regions, leading us to consider that the simulated scenario entails better redistributive results, as well as additional savings for Spanish Public Accounts, in a context of growing debt. Our findings can provide public policy-makers with useful information about the convenience of fighting poverty at a national level as regards distribution and revenue.

The purpose of this chapter is to determine the optimal path of development of social entrepreneurship in Russia and Central Asian countries by performing a scenario analysis of the development of social entrepreneurship and analyzing the opinions of interested parties regarding the outcome of social entrepreneurship in Russia and Central Asian states. The authors’ recommendations for the practical implementation of the optimal path of social entrepreneurship development are described.

The scenario analysis of statistical data showed that the existing practice of standardization of social companies’ activities hinders their executing their functions on raising the quality of life. With the expansion of freedom of social entrepreneurship, the population’s quality of life grows; on the contrary, the increase of state regulation leads to its reduction. The findings show that social entrepreneurship in Russia and Central Asian countries is interested in private investments and social companies’ employees. That is why the representatives of these categories of concerned parties support de-regulation. Consumers of social goods and services are interested in obtaining them freely and thus prefer standardization.

This chapter presents a new direction of social entrepreneurship analysis – by determining the correlation between economic freedom and quality of life. This opens an opportunity for thorough social entrepreneurship research based on authentic and objective quantitative (statistical) data. The obtained conclusions and offered recommendations allow using the mechanism of public–private entrepreneurship for turning social entrepreneurship into something more valuable and useful – a tool for increasing the quality of the population’s life.

Aim: This chapter aims to examine the connection between government policies and entrepreneurial dimensions present in 13 European Union member countries, over the period 2002–2019. As long as the policies represent a set of decisions and actions issued by state-run structures, bodies with political, legislative, and financial authority to act to deal with a matter of public interest, this study overviews how intervention channels and policy instruments act upon supporting entrepreneurship.

Method: The methodology employed consists of correlations, principal component analysis (PCA), and regression models, in order to emphasise the statistically significant relationships between governance indicators and several entrepreneurial dimensions (financing for entrepreneurs, taxes and bureaucracy, basic school entrepreneurial education and training), and also the robustness of the results.

Results and Discussion: After observing the correlations evidencing strong relationships between the governance indicators, the results from PCA returned two main components for the Worldwide Governance Indicators: one incorporates the direct effect of control of corruption, government effectiveness, voice and accountability, regulatory quality, and rule of law, while the second component is based on political stability and absence of violence/terrorism factor. Results proved that governance has a significant impact on the financing available for entrepreneurs, especially from the first principal component, while taxes and regulations applied to new businesses have more impact in supporting entrepreneurship in countries with lower political stability levels. The consistent regression results emphasised that entrepreneurs feel more support from an institutional environment and more financing opportunities in an economy characterised by good governance, and taxes and regulations applied to new businesses have more impact in supporting entrepreneurship in countries with lower political stability levels.

Originality/Value: This study contributes to the literature studying the role of government policies on economic growth, by bringing more insights on the governance aspects and policies which are more favourable to productive entrepreneurship.

Let there be two individuals: “rich,” and “poor.” Due to inefficiency of the income redistribution policy, if a social planner were to tax the rich in order to transfer to the poor, only a fraction of the taxed income would be given to the poor. Under such inefficiency and a standard utility specification, a Rawlsian social planner who seeks to maximize the utility of the worst-off individual will select a different allocation of incomes than a utilitarian social planner who seeks to maximize the sum of the individuals’ utilities. However, when individuals prefer not only to have more income but also not to have low status conceptualized as low relative income, and when this distaste is incorporated in the individuals’ utility functions with a weight that is greater than a specified critical level, then a utilitarian social planner will select the very same income distribution as a Rawlsian social planner.

Job Corps is the United State’s largest and most comprehensive training program for disadvantaged youth aged 16–24 years old. A randomized social experiment concluded that, on average, individuals benefited from the program in the form of higher weekly earnings and employment prospects. At the same time, “young adults” (ages 20–24) realized much higher impacts relative to “adolescents” (ages 16–19). Employing recent nonparametric bounds for causal mediation, we investigate whether these two groups’ disparate effects correspond to them benefiting differentially from distinct aspects of Job Corps, with a particular focus on the attainment of a degree (GED, high school, or vocational). We find that, for young adults, the part of the total effect of Job Corps on earnings (employment) that is due to attaining a degree within the program is at most 41% (32%) of the total effect, whereas for adolescents that part can account for up to 87% (100%) of the total effect. We also find evidence that the magnitude of the part of the effect of Job Corps on the outcomes that works through components of Job Corps other than degree attainment (e.g., social skills, job placement, residential services) is likely higher for young adults than for adolescents. That those other components likely play a more important role for young adults has policy implications for more effectively servicing participants. More generally, our results illustrate how researchers can learn about particular mechanisms of an intervention.

This paper looks at the changes in the time allocation of welfare recipients in the United States following the 1996 welfare reform and other changes in their economic environment. Time use is a major determinant of well-being, and for policymakers to understand the broad influences that their policies can have on a population they ought to consider changes in all activities, not simply paid work. While an increase in market work of the welfare population has been well documented, little is known on the evolution of the balance of their time. Using the Current Population Survey to model the propensity to receive welfare, together with a multiple imputation procedure, I replicate previous difference-in-differences estimates that found an increase in child care and a decline in nonmarket work. However when additional data sources are used, I find that time spent providing child care does not increase. This is especially relevant as welfare recipients are overwhelmingly poor single mothers and the welfare reform increased time at work with ambiguous effects on time spent with children. I also find that time at work follows business cycles, with dramatic increases in work time throughout the strong economy of the late 1990s, accompanied by less time in leisure activities.

We analyse the dynamics of social assistance benefit (SA) receipt among working-age adults in Britain between 1991 and 2005. The decline in the annual SA receipt rate was driven by a decline in the SA entry rate rather than by the SA exit rate (which also declined). We examine the determinants of these trends using a multivariate dynamic random effects probit model of SA receipt probabilities applied to British Household Panel Survey data. We show how the model may be used to derive year-by-year predictions of aggregate SA entry, exit and receipt rates. The analysis highlights the importance of the decline in the unemployment rate over the period and other changes in the socio-economic environment including two reforms to the income maintenance system in the 1990s and also illustrates the effects of self-selection (‘creaming’) on observed and unobserved characteristics.