Do the Unemployed Become Successful Entrepreneurs? A Comparison between the Unemployed, Inactive and Wage-Earners In many countries unemployed people are helped to become self-employed. Selfemployment, however, does not necessarily lead to success. Many leave self-employment after a short period and the economic outcome varies greatly. It is important to learn more about the economic outcome fo...

Among 4630 boys, irrespective of the social class into which they were born, those who grew slowly during infancy had poor educational achievements and had lower incomes than those who grew more rapidly. One interpretation of this is that biological processes linked to slow infant growth may lead to lifelong impairment of cognitive function.

This article reports on a sample of 538 African American and Hispanic women who were receiving TANF in 1999, 416 of whom left the program by 2005. The Hispanic women consisted of a Mexican-origin group and a second group that was primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican. Combining the experiences of the employed and the non-employed welfare leavers, we find at best a modest decline in the average p...

The United States far outspends Canada on health care, but the sources of additional spending are unclear. We evaluated the importance of incomes, administration, and medical interventions in this difference. Pooling various sources, we calculated medical personnel incomes, administrative expenses, and procedure volume and intensity for the United States and Canada. We found that Canada spent $...

We examine the role that an exogenous increase in household income due to a government transfer unrelated to household characteristics plays in children's long run outcomes. Children in affected households have higher levels of education in their young adulthood and a lower incidence of criminality for minor offenses. Effects differ by initial household poverty status. An additional $4000 per y...

The retirement world of the future is challenging because of the decline in defined benefit plans, low savings rates in the United States, increased longevity and the failure of many people to effectively plan for retirement. Drawing on a variety of studies and public opinion surveys, the authors of this article explain why a system that relies too much on people providing for themselves will h...

This paper explores the rationale for unemployment beneÞts as a complement to optimal non-linear income taxation. High-skilled workers and low-skilled workers face different exogenous risks of being unemployed. As long as the low-skilled workers face a higher unemployment risk, we Þnd that there is a case for over-insuring the lowskilled, hence the unemployment beneÞts of the low-skilled should...

In this paper we appraise current agricultural subsidy policy in the EU. Several sources of its inefficiency are identified: it is inefficient for supporting farmers' incomes or guaranteeing food security, and irrational transfer payments decoupled from actual performance that may be negative for environmental protection, social cohesion, etc. Based on a simplified economic model, we prove that...