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Abstract
Work requirements remain a popular yet controversial policy in welfare programs around the world. This dissertation provides a comprehensive evaluation of welfare-to-work reforms by estimating their long-run effects on multiple outcomes for a generation of birth cohorts. I apply recent advances in difference-in-differences methods and large-scale administrative data to study the introduction of mandatory, publicly-managed work programs in Denmark's social assistance program. Effects are highly heterogeneous across cohorts based on the time the reforms were introduced in the life-cycle. Adults already eligible for welfare at the time of the reforms incur null or modest negative effects on income and substitute toward crime and alternative welfare programs. Meanwhile, not-yet-eligible children experience significant gains in schooling and income. This heterogeneity is consistent with a model where younger cohorts invest in their human capital in anticipation of future work requirements while older cohorts adjust along margins with high social costs. Evidence suggests that heterogeneity over birth cohorts can persist for decades over the life-cycle and spill over to the next generation. Cost-benefit analyses reveal that welfare-to-work is cost-effective in the long-run, but is likely driven by anticipatory behavioral responses of younger cohorts aging into the population rather than the effect of participating in work requirements. This sheds light on the interpretation of aggregate effects of welfare-to-work over time and alternative, more efficient policy designs.