Discussion Papers no. 503

Evidence from a natural experiment

Does welfare policy affect residential choices?

This paper studies how changes in welfare benefit levels affect welfare recipients' residential choices. Although several empirical studies have stressed that welfare policy may affect residential choices of welfare recipients, few studies have simultaneously taken into account that residential choices of welfare recipients also affect welfare policy. The main contribution of this paper is to address this policy endogeneity by utilizing a policy reform as a natural experiment. The results show that welfare policy exerts a nontrivial effect on residential choices of welfare recipients. Moreover, I show that ignoring the policy endogeneity may give rise to a downward bias in the estimated migration responses.

Om publikasjonen

Tittel

Does welfare policy affect residential choices?. Evidence from a natural experiment

Ansvarlig

Jon Hernes Fiva

Serie og -nummer

Discussion Papers no. 503

Utgiver

Statistics Norway

Emne

Discussion Papers

Antall sider

28

Målform

Engelsk

Om Discussion Papers

Discussion papers comprise research papers intended for international journals and books. A preprint of a Discussion Paper may be longer and more elaborate than a standard journal article as it may include intermediate calculations, background material etc.

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