Do Immigrant Groups Differ in Welfare Usage? Evidence from the U.S.

The study of welfare participation in the United States prior to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and afterward has primarily focused on comparing native and immigrant households. Analyses that have gone beyond this broad classification have focused on comparisons across race, with particular focus on Hispanic immigrants. This paper moves away from the existing literature by investigating whether there is a difference in welfare usage among immigrant based on their birthplace. Using a probit model, we investigate this potential difference by testing two related hypotheses. Our results suggest that the probability of welfare usage for immigrants with similar characteristic, differ for some immigrant groups. We also find that for some immigrant groups, citizen and noncitizens differ with respect to welfare usage.     

Export growth and output growth: An application of bounds testing approach

The short-run and the long-run relationship between export growth and economic growth has received a great deal of attention in the literature. Cointegration techniques that have been employed by previous researchers require that the variables to be non-stationary but their linear combination to be stationary. When variables are not integrated of the same order, they are excluded from analysis. This needs not to be the case with the introduction of the bounds testing approach. Indeed, the approach does not require pre-unit-root testing. This paper applies this new method to export and output data from 44 developing countries and provides support for the export-led growth hypothesis in 60% of the countries.     

The Role of Race and Birth Place in Welfare Usage among Comparable Women: Evidence from the U.S.

There is evidence that women are more likely to live in poverty than men. Given the fact that the poor are more likely to use welfare, it becomes useful to consider welfare usage among women. A-priori welfare programs are set up in such a way that welfare usage should be based primarily on economic needs and health concerns. However, it is possible that an individual’s experiences could affect their perception and inclination for using government assistance. In this scenario, differences in welfare usage will exist for individuals with similar characteristics but different experiences. We explore this possibility among women and investigate if race/ethnicity and birthplace still have a role to play in the decision to use welfare even after controlling for income, health and other demographic factors like employment and household size, which are typical predictors of welfare usage. We find that race does not matter for welfare usage among comparable women. In addition, we do not find significant differences in welfare usage among women based on birthplace—suggesting that comparable naturalized and native born women share similar inclination for welfare.