With a little help from vouchers

This is the controversy that has stirred Luxembourg in recent months, the Interior Minister Léon Gloden, who has declared war on the alleged networks of beggars in Luxembourg city centre, and by the same token on anyone likely to beg in the capital. The stated policy is to combat organised groups that send professional beggars onto the streets to pay their foreign-based bosses for their daily earnings. But for the public, it is difficult to differentiate between independent beggars and those linked to trafficking.

It was against the backdrop of this highly political controversy that Patrick Vanhoudt, Professor of Economics at the Luxembourg Business School (LBS), turned his attention to the issue: "I wondered whether it would be possible to find a micro-economic solution, i.e. a combination of human behaviour and resource allocation, to reduce begging." He has, of course, seen the phenomenon for himself: "I've lived in Luxembourg for 26 years, and I have empathy for homeless people. There is enormous poverty in this country, but there is also the phenomenon of organised begging, which should not be ignored, and which is seen as a nuisance. Politicians want to evict them, while the homeless try to survive from day to day. For them, their budget balances between what they want to buy and what they want."