The Welfare Cost of Means-Testing: Pensioner Participation in Income Support

Stephen Pudney, Monica Hernandez Alava and Ruth Hancock

No 171, Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 from Royal Economic Society

Abstract: We estimate parametric and semi-parametric binary choice models of benefit take-up by British pensioners and use a revealed preference argument to infer the cash-equivalent value of disutility arising from stigma or complexity of the claims process. These implicit costs turn out to be relatively small, averaging about £2-4 per week across Income Support recipients. Using the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke measure of poverty among pensioners, we find that allowing for implicit claim costs incurred by benefit recipients raises the measured degree of poverty by not more than 16%.

Keywords: benefit take-up; program participation; pensions; welfare; poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 D63 H55 I32 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-06-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-pbe
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The welfare cost of means-testing: pensioner participation in income support (2007)
Working Paper: The welfare cost of means-testing: pensioner participation in income support (2006)
Working Paper: The Welfare Cost of Means-Testing: Pensioner Participation in Income Support (2002)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecj:ac2003:171

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