Tag: welfare

  • Social Expenditure : Benefits in Kind or cash – Some comparative data

    Lets leave aside for a moment what the levels of social expenditure might be. The composition of these also matters I contend. At one extreme we can give people a lot of cash and allow them to go find the services they need. At another extreme we can give them very little cash and provide…

  • Should we cut longterm unemployment payments?

    There is some comment today in the newspapers on an EU commission report which states, inter alia, that welfare rates should be cut in the forthcoming budget. They state in a draft report (which doesn’t seem to be publicly available) “In part this may reflect the structure of the benefits system in Ireland, whereby activation…

  • Richard Tol, academic freedom and the ESRI.

    The ESRI-Richard Tol brouhaha has been strangely ignored by many academic blogs. I guess its because we are all on holidays… To summarize; in May 2012 Richard, who had left the ESRI under rather strained circumstances earlier this year uploaded a working paper on the welfare-work wedge, whether and under what circumstances it is “better”…