Description:

Speaker: Jennifer Mayo (University of Missouri)

Title: "Rags to Rags: The Multi-Generational Effects of Ending Cash Transfers in Victorian Britain."

Abstract: We study the intergenerational impacts of ending cash transfers using the 1834 ("New") Poor Law, which drastically cut the income support that was provided to 15 percent of the population in England and Wales at a cost of 2 percent of GDP. We show that in 1861, cohorts more exposed to income-support declines in childhood held lower-skilled jobs as adults and had fewer of their children in school. Linking these sons to the 1891 census, we find similar results for them as adults and also for their children, highlighting the importance of accounting for multi-generational effects in cost-benefit analyses of social programs.