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Time-Limited in-Work Benefits in the UK: A Review of Recent Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Haroon Chowdry
Haroon Chowdry*
Affiliation:
Institute for Fiscal Studies
*
1 E-mail: h.chowdry@ifs.org.uk
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Abstract

This paper reviews three UK-based welfare-to-work programmes featuring time-limited financial incentives to leave out-of-work benefits for employment. The policies considered are (i) the Employment Retention and Advancement demonstration, aimed at lone parents and the long-term unemployed; (ii) In-Work Credit, aimed at lone parents on welfare; (iii) Pathways to Work, aimed at recipients of incapacity benefits. I illustrate the difficulties in extrapolating from specific findings to general policy-relevant conclusions. Finally, I depict the challenge facing evaluators in future and point to the directions in which evaluation will need to develop if it is to contribute more fully to policy-relevant evaluation.

Keywords

Programme evaluationcost-benefit analysiswelfare policylone parentspovertyunemploymentincentivesrandomisationC21H21H53I38J22J68
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 219 , January 2012 , pp. R53 - R64
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

Support from the ESRC Centre for Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies is gratefully acknowledged. The author is grateful to Mike Brewer and anonymous referees for comments and suggestions, and to colleagues at the IFS whose joint work is cited in this paper. All inaccuracies or errors that remain are the author's responsibility. Any views articulated in this article are those of the author, not the IFS.

JEL Classifications: C21; H21; H53; I38; J22; J68

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