Few United States government programs are as controversial as those designed to aid the poor. From tax credits to medical assistance, aid to needy families is surrounded by debate—on what benefits should be offered, what forms they should take, and how they should be administered. The past few decades, in fact, have seen this debate lead to broad transformations of aid programs themselves, with Aid to Families with Dependent Children replaced by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, the Earned Income Tax Credit growing from a minor program to one of the most important for low-income families, and Medicaid greatly expanding its eligibility. This volume provides a remarkable overview of how such programs actually work, offering an impressive wealth of information on the nation's nine largest "means-tested" programs—that is, those in which some test of income forms the basis for participation. For each program, contributors describe origins and goals, summarize policy histories and current rules, and discuss the recipient's characteristics as well as the different types of benefits they receive. Each chapter then provides an overview of scholarly research on each program, bringing together the results of the field's most rigorous statistical examinations. The result is a fascinating portrayal of the evolution and current state of means-tested programs, one that charts a number of shifts in emphasis—the decline of cash assistance, for instance, and the increasing emphasis on work. This exemplary portrait of the nation's safety net will be an invaluable reference for anyone interested in American social policy.

As conceived by the founders of the Econometric Society, econometrics is a field that uses economic theory and statistical methods to address empirical problems in economics. It is a tool for empirical discovery and policy analysis. The chapters in this volume embody this vision and either implement it directly or provide the tools for doing so. This vision is not shared by those who view econometrics as a branch of statistics rather than as a distinct field of knowledge that designs methods of inference from data based on models of human choice behavior and social interactions. All of the essays in this volume and its companion volume 6A offer guidance to the practitioner on how to apply the methods they discuss to interpret economic data. The authors of the chapters are all leading scholars in the fields they survey and extend.Handbook of Econometrics is now available online at ScienceDirect — full-text online from volume 1 onwards.*Part of the renowned Handbooks in Economics Series *Updates and expands the exisiting Handbook of Econometrics volumes *An invaluable reference written by some of the world's leading econometricians.

The evaluation of labour market and other public policies has become increasingly important in recent years. In an era of tight government budgets, a thorough analysis of these measures is imperative. This book provides a comprehensive overview and assessment of the most relevant microeconometric evaluation methods. It focuses on the popular propensity score matching method and gives extensive guidance for its implementation. In the second part of the book, this method is used to evaluate the employment effects of job creation schemes on the participating individuals in Germany. Based on a large administrative dataset of over 11,000 participants, the study allows to draw policy-relevant conclusions for the first time.

The Handbook is a definitive reference source and teaching aid for econometricians. It examines models, estimation theory, data analysis and field applications in econometrics.