Accounting for Housing in Poverty Analysis

The treatment of housing in the definition of income used to measure poverty makes a big difference to who is counted as poor. Both the Before Housing Costs (BHC) and After Housing Costs (AHC) measures in current use in the UK pose problems. BHC income does not capture the advantages of living in owner-occupied housing and AHC income might not account for the benefits of living in higher-quality accommodation. We explore the potential of including in income the difference between the estimated value of housing consumed and housing costs, which we refer to as net imputed rent. We investigate whether findings about child and pensioner poverty, and judgements about the effectiveness of poverty-reducing policies, are affected by accounting for housing in this way

Do household surveys give a coherent view of disability benefit targeting?: A multisurvey latent variable analysis for the older population in Great Britain

We compare three major UK surveys, the British Household Panel Survey, Family Resources Survey and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, in terms of the picture that they give of the relationship between disability and receipt of the attendance allowance benefit. Using the different disability indicators that are available in each survey, we use a structural equation approach involving a latent concept of disability in which probabilities of receiving attendance allowance depend on disability. Despite major differences in design, once sample composition has been standardized through statistical matching, the surveys deliver similar results for the model of disability and receipt of attendance allowance. Provided that surveys offer a sufficiently wide range of disability indicators, the detail of disability measurement appears relatively unimportant

Regional Institutional Quality and Territorial Equity in LTC Provision

We show how regional governments affect the appropriate – in terms of territorial equity - assignment of a national LTC benefit. We analyse a three -layers setting, where eligibility criteria are defined by the central government (which bears the fiscal cost of transfers) but the assignment decision is taken by regional medical commissions, while applications are activated by individual potent ial beneficiaries. Combining administrative and survey data, and accounting for regional variation in eligibility prevalence, we document large territorial disparities in need - adjusted benefit assignment. We investigate the determinants of such disparities both in terms of individuals’ differential propensity to claim, and of regional discretionary behaviour, as shaped by the underlying quality of regional institutions. Regional discretion appears to play a major role, with local institutional quality accou nting for about one fifth of explained variation in need- adjusted benefit coverage. Lower regional institutional quality results in more opportunistic benefit adjudication decisions, although the relationship is attenuated in highly deprived areas