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"welfare effects"
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Long-Term Impacts of Conditional Cash Transfers
Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs, started in the late 1990s in Latin America, have become the antipoverty program of choice in many developing countries in the region and beyond. This paper reviews the literature on their long-term impacts on human capital and related outcomes observed after children have reached a later stage of their life cycle, focusing on two life-cycle transitions. The first includes children exposed to CCTs in utero or during early childhood who have reached school ages. The second includes children exposed to CCTs during school ages who have reached young adulthood. Most studies find positive long-term effects on schooling, but fewer find positive impacts on cognitive skills, learning, or socio-emotional skills. Impacts on employment and earnings are mixed, possibly because former beneficiaries were often still too young. A number of studies find estimates that are not statistically different from zero, but for which it is often not possible to be confident that this is due to an actual lack of impact rather than to the methodological challenges facing all long-term evaluations. Developing further opportunities for analyses with rigorous identification strategies for the measurement of long-term impacts should be high on the research agenda. As original beneficiaries age, this should also be increasingly possible, and indeed important before concluding whether or not CCTs lead to sustainable poverty reduction.
Journal Article
Immigrants, Labour Market Performance and Social Insurance
Using longitudinal data from the date of arrival, we study long-term labour market and social insurance outcomes for all major immigrant cohorts to Norway since 1970. Immigrants from high-income countries performed as natives, while labour migrants from low-income source countries had declining employment rates and increasing disability programme participation over the lifecycle. Refugees and family migrants assimilated during the initial period upon arrival but labour market convergence halted after a decade and was accompanied by rising social insurance rates. For the children of labour migrants of the 1970s, we uncover evidence of intergenerational assimilation in education, earnings and fertility.
Journal Article
Transfers in Cash and In-Kind: Theory Meets the Data
We review theoretical explanations for in-kind transfers in light of the limited empirical evidence. After reviewing the traditional paternalistic arguments, we consider explanations based on imperfect information and self-targeting. We then discuss the large literature on in-kind programs as a way of improving the efficiency of the tax system and a range of other possible explanations, including the \"Samaritan's Dilemma,\" pecuniary effects, credit constraints, asymmetric information amongst agents, and political economy considerations. Our reading of the evidence suggests that paternalism and interdependent preferences are leading overall explanations for the existence of in-kind transfer programs but that some of the other arguments may apply to specific cases. Political economy considerations must also be part of the story.
Journal Article
On the welfare effect of retail electricity subsidy in Vietnam
PurposeThis research investigates how subsidy programs in Vietnam's residential electricity market affect consumers' well-being.Design/methodology/approachTwo perspectives are employed: cash transfer and quantity-based subsidy. The effectiveness of cash transfer is measured in three ways: benefit incidence, beneficiary incidence and materiality. The quantity-based subsidy is established under the increasing block rate pricing, with the first two block rates being lower than the marginal cost. To improve the quantity-based subsidy, the research examines the consumer surplus under four proposals.FindingsThe results show that both types of subsidies are ineffective in supporting the poor.Research limitations/implicationsIn order to achieve a more equal distribution among households, the subsidy program should remove all subsidized blocks and reflect the full marginal cost. Changes should be made to the price structure regarding both marginal price and intervals.Practical implicationsTo mitigate the impact of the quantity-based subsidy, the government should improve the cash transfer by reducing extortion and improving targeting efficiency, especially for poor households living in rented houses.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to discuss the welfare effect of the electricity subsidy in Vietnam. First, it comprehensively evaluates the cash transfer subsidy in Vietnam. Second, it suggests a modification in the residential electricity tariff.
Journal Article
Did Austerity Cause Brexit?
This paper documents a significant association between the exposure of an individual or area to the UK government’s austerity-induced welfare reforms begun in 2010, and the following: the subsequent rise in support for the UK Independence Party, an important correlate of Leave support in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership; broader individual-level measures of political dissatisfaction; and direct measures of support for Leave. Leveraging data from all UK electoral contests since 2000, along with detailed, individual-level panel data, the findings suggest that the EU referendum could have resulted in a Remain victory had it not been for austerity.
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Racial Disproportionality and Disparities in the Child Welfare System: Why Do They Exist, and What Can Be Done to Address Them?
Children of color are overrepresented in the child welfare system, and Black children have been most significantly impacted by this racial disproportionality. Racial disproportionality in child welfare exists because of influences that are both external to child welfare systems and part of the child welfare system. We summarize the causes of racial disproportionality, arguing that internal and external causes of disproportional involvement originate from a common underlying factor: structural and institutional racism that is both within child welfare systems and part of society at large. Further, we review options for addressing racial disproportionality, arguing that it needs to be rectified because of the harm it causes Black children and families and that forcible separation of children from their parents can no longer be viewed as an acceptable form of intervention for families in need.
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The long-run impact of cash transfers to poor families
We estimate the long-run impact of cash transfers to poor families on children's longevity, educational attainment, nutritional status, and income in adulthood. To do so, we collected individual-level administrative records of applicants to the Mothers' Pension program—the first government-sponsored welfare program in the United States (1911-1935)—and matched them to census, WWII, and death records. Male children of accepted applicants lived one year longer than those of rejected mothers. They also obtained onethird more years of schooling, were less likely to be underweight, and had higher income in adulthood than children of rejected mothers.
Journal Article
TAKE-UP AND TARGETING
We develop a framework for welfare analysis of interventions designed to increase take-up of social safety net programs in the presence of potential behavioral biases. We calibrate the key parameters using a randomized field experiment in which 30,000 elderly individuals not enrolled in—but likely eligible for—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are either provided with information that they are likely eligible, provided with this information and offered assistance in applying, or are in a “status quo” control group. Only 6% of the control group enrolls in SNAP over the next nine months, compared to 11% of the Information Only group and 18% of the Information Plus Assistance group. The individuals who apply or enroll in response to either intervention have higher net income and are less sick than the average enrollee in the control group. We present evidence consistent with the existence of optimization frictions that are greater for needier individuals, which suggests that the poor targeting properties of the interventions reduce their welfare benefits.
Journal Article
Building State Capacity: Evidence from Biometric Smartcards in India
Antipoverty programs in developing countries are often difficult to implement; in particular, many governments lack the capacity to deliver payments securely to targeted beneficiaries. We evaluate the impact of biometrically authenticated payments infrastructure (\"Smartcards\") on beneficiaries of employment (NREGS) and pension (SSP) programs in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, using a large-scale experiment that randomized the rollout of Smartcards over 157 subdistricts and 19 million people. We find that, while incompletely implemented, the new system delivered a faster, more predictable, and less corrupt NREGS payments process without adversely affecting program access. For each of these outcomes, treatment group distributions first-order stochastically dominated those of the control group. The investment was cost-effective, as time savings to NREGS beneficiaries alone were equal to the cost of the intervention, and there was also a significant reduction in the \"leakage \"of funds between the government and beneficiaries in both NREGS and SSP programs. Beneficiaries overwhelmingly preferred the new system for both programs. Overall, our results suggest that investing in secure payments infrastructure can significantly enhance \"state capacity\" to implement welfare programs in developing countries.
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