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Author: Powers, Elizabeth T.

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1.	Powers, Elizabeth T.
1.	Does Mean-Testing Welfare Discourage Saving? Evidence from a Change in AFDC Policy in the United States Journal of Public Economics 68,1 (April 1998): 33-53. Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004727279700087X Cohort(s): Young Women Publisher: Elsevier Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Household Structure; Savings; Welfare Empirical evidence is provided on the impact of a welfare program's asset test on the saving behavior of its target population. The approach exploits a policy experiment; the essential federalization of the AFDC program's asset-testing policy in 1981. Data on female-headed households from the National Longitudinal Survey - Young Women are used to test the hypothesis that likely AFDC users adjusted their asset stocks in response to this change. The findings indicate additional saving between 1978 and 1983 of about 25 cents for each additional $1 increase in the limit in most states.
	Bibliography Citation Powers, Elizabeth T. "Does Mean-Testing Welfare Discourage Saving? Evidence from a Change in AFDC Policy in the United States." Journal of Public Economics 68,1 (April 1998): 33-53.

2.	Powers, Elizabeth T.
2.	Does Means-testing Welfare Discourage Saving? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Women Working Paper No.9519, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, December 1995 Cohort(s): Young Women Publisher: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Assets; Benefits; Endogeneity; Wealth; Welfare Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. This paper empirically tests whether the asset limit associated with the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program discourages wealth accumulation by actual and prospective participants. Prior to 1981, the AFDC asset test varied substantially across states, and this variation can be used to identify the effect of the limit on wealth. Wealth holdings for female-headed households (the primary recipient group for AFDC) for 1978 are estimated using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Women. A $1 difference in state limits results in an estimated $.50 difference in total net wealth holdings of female-headed households in different states. This qualitative finding of a significantly positive effect is reasonably robust with respect to a variety of specifications of the wealth equation and instrumenting of the limit to correct for the potential endogeneity of policy. After instrumenting, a $1 difference in limits implies a difference in potential AFDC recipients' wealth holdings of $.30.
	Bibliography Citation Powers, Elizabeth T. "Does Means-testing Welfare Discourage Saving? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Women." Working Paper No.9519, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, December 1995.

3.	Powers, Elizabeth T.
3.	Essays on the Incentive Effects of United States Welfare Policy Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1994 Cohort(s): Mature Women Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Assets; Childbearing; Life Cycle Research; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations; Savings; Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); Wealth; Welfare This dissertation consists of three essays about how people respond to welfare policy. The first two essays examine the potential effects of the asset limit in welfare programs on saving. Theory predicts that among some groups, the prospect of facing an asset test discourages wealth accumulation. In the first essay, wealth holdings of female-headed households are examined in an era of significant interstate variation in asset limits. Based on theory and simulation results for two period models, a positive relationship between wealth holdings and asset limits supports the hypothesis. The paper also includes an examination of the asset data in the National Longitudinal Survey of Women. The second essay examines the saving response to prospective welfare participation spells using data from the 1984 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Estimates of an augmented life cycle saving equation indicate that those about to participate in welfare programs save significantly less than their peers and that expectations of future welfare participation also lead to reduced saving. In the third and final essay estimate the effect of the benefit schedule, which is nondecreasing in the number of children, on childbearing decisions of female heads of household, treating the childbirth and participation decisions in a sequential framework. Finding indicate that there are small but significant positive effects of benefit policy on births, but that elimination of the differentials would not lead to substantial reductions in the cost of the AFDC program. Findings also indicate that welfare mothers are no more likely to give birth to more children than female heads who are not participating.
	Bibliography Citation Powers, Elizabeth T. Essays on the Incentive Effects of United States Welfare Policy. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1994.

4.	Powers, Elizabeth T.
4.	Fertility and Welfare Participation Working Paper No. 9516, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, December 1995 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Childbearing; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Family Size; Fertility; Welfare Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Despite the attention that the fertility of welfare recipients has received recently, surprisingly little is known about it. This paper answers some basic questions about the phenomenon of welfare births. Among the findings from the March 1987 Current Population Survey are that 13.4 percent of all births are into the 7.3 percent of families receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and that (unadjusted) fertility rates of welfare recipients exceed those of other groups. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I find that nearly 60 percent of women who use AFDC in one or more years of the sample period have at least one "AFDC birth." I do not find prima facie evidence supporting the notions that women use AFDC to begin families earlier and that mothers use AFDC to realize their desires for large families.
	Bibliography Citation Powers, Elizabeth T. "Fertility and Welfare Participation." Working Paper No. 9516, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, December 1995.

5.	Powers, Elizabeth T.
5.	The Impact of AFDC on Birth Decisions and Program Participation Working Paper No. 9408, Federal Reserve Bank Cleveland, Ohio, June 1994. Also: http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/workpaper/1994/wp9408.pdf Cohort(s): Mature Women Publisher: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Keyword(s): Age at First Birth; Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Birth Rate; Family Characteristics; Marital Status; Modeling, Logit; Modeling, Probit; Welfare Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Recently, New Jersey and Wisconsin eliminated the practice of increasing the AFDC benefits of families that bear additional children while on the program. Policy makers seem to accept the notion that added benefits encourage participants to bear more children, despite little direct formal evidence. This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Women to examine the impact of both the level of AFDC benefits and the per child increment on births, as well as the effect of benefit policy and childbearing on AFDC participation. Single-equation probit estimates suggest that women on AFDC are no more likely than nonparticipants to give birth over the five years following the observation, but that those births which do occur are positively associated with incremental AFDC benefits. When birth and welfare participation decisions are estimated sequentially in a nested logit framework, AFDC benefits are found to be a significant factor in the post-birth participation decision, and empirical support emerges for the hypothesis that AFDC benefits also encourage additional births. The estimated parameters are used to simulate the impact on participation and births of eliminating incremental benefits for both new program entrants and continuing participants. Even though the specification supports the "AFDC benefits cause births" hypothesis, eliminating the new-birth increment would reduce total program costs by less than 3 percent, since both the per dollar effect of benefits on births and the per child increments themselves are small.
	Bibliography Citation Powers, Elizabeth T. "The Impact of AFDC on Birth Decisions and Program Participation." Working Paper No. 9408, Federal Reserve Bank Cleveland, Ohio, June 1994.

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