WORKING PAPER
Improved cash-transfers or higher work incentives for parents?
Child poverty rates in Serbia are well above the average poverty rates for the general population, with both the total poverty rate and the child poverty rate being considerably higher than the EU average.
This study from a team of PEP researchers proposes different reform strategies concerning the two main means tested social protection programs (monetary social assistance and child allowance).
The authors proposals aim to improve the targeting and coverage of these programs, as well as acting on the incentives to work by the parents for the benefit of children in poverty.
The findings point to the most cost-effective reform (in terms of poverty reduction for each million of RSD spent) to be the child allowance in which the full informal income is included in the means-test.
AUTHORS: Jelena Žarkovic Rakic / Nicholas-James Clavet / Luca Tiberti / Marko Vladisavljevic / Aleksandra Anic / Gorana Krstic / Saša Ran elovic