Links March 1 – Revisiting the effects (or lack thereof) of social protection on informality; cash transfers and fertility in Uruguay; reviewing the multisectoral evidence on school meals; financing social assistance in Brazil; simulating the fiscal cost of enhanced social protection in Asia; a primer on child benefits; social protection and climate funds; Covid responses in Uganda (and “super cash transfers” in the same country); 4 humanitarian resources; an online course on social protection data privacy…

All right, let’s tackle it head-on: the famous, hotly debated 2008 paper by Santiago Levy “Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes” has often been touted (and not always fairly so) as evidence of that Mexico’s financing structure of social protection makes it attractive for informal workers to stay informal. A new counter-paper by Heintz and Ghosh, “Good Intentions, Better Outcomes”, seeks to reframe a narrative whereby unintended consequences can be avoided. After critiquing and largely debunking demand, supply and hybrid explanations of social protection-informality relationships, the case of Uruguay is showcased as an example where formalization and social protection expansion can co-exist (including via the Monotax regime establishing a simplified and unified collection scheme for small contributors). Another freshly minted paper by Corona and Velez-Grajales (with a bold cover!) reviews the evidence on the theme from 27 studies (table 2, p.5). Their subsequent analysis of 11 robust papers points to nuanced and mixed results, with impacts sometimes concentrated on particular populations and firms (see the papers’ summary annex, p.13-19): quite sobering to note that studies tend not to consider contributory, non-contributory and taxation in an integrated way, they often focus on a limited numbers of labor market indicators, and few explore transitions onto jobs. Bonus: a thoughtful blog by González-Pier and Juergens-Grant reaches similar conclusions.

Uruguay is at the center of another big question: do cash transfers increase fertility? A paper by Parada evaluates the Uruguayan conditional cash transfer program Asignaciones Familiares – Plan de Equidad and finds no statistically significant impact of the CCT on fertility rates or teenage pregnancy: “… belonging to a beneficiary household had no discernible impact on fertility decisions among the analyzed group of women”.

What do we know about the evidence on one of the largest-coverage social protection programs globally? Alderman et al review the empirical base for school meals schemes: these cover 41% of primary school children and account between 11% and 68% of per capita investments in primary education. By examining cross-sectoral evidence, the authors found that in terms of education, school meals “can lead to increased learning among the intensive margin of students who would have been enrolled even in the absence of the program”; on nutrition, despite “not targeted to the ages at which children are most vulnerable to undernutrition (…) school meals can lead to improvements in physical health, including height, weight, and micronutrient status; on agriculture and the effects of local food procurement, “the paucity of causal evidence is disappointing”; and social protection (including a “broad but shallow” income transfer function and crisis response), “there are essentially no comparative studies on financing modalities [vis-à-vis cash transfers] or their role in responding to shocks”.

Since I mentioned financing… De Arruda reviews the financing of social assistance in Brazil. He shows that federal government transfers represent about 80% of the social assistance budget (p.8), over 85% of these resources are absorbed by cash transfers (p.13), and presents some insightful charts on financing flows (p.11).

Let’s move to Asia: van de Meerendonk et al apply the Social Protection Reform Simulation (SPRS) model to estimate the fiscal cost of enhanced social protection in South and East Asia. The simulated package consists of various assistance, insurance and labor market components (see table 1, p.5-6 for key parameters, and figure 1, p.4, for an overview of methodology). Interestingly, it examines costs at “introduction” (2024), “midterm” (2027), and “final year of projection” (2030 in line with the SDG target) for 26 countries. Results? A massive scale up is needed… check out figure 2, p.13, for status quo plus reform scenario. An average of 7.4% of GDP would be required as of now, growing to 9% of GDP in the next 6 years, with social assistance making most of the heavy lifting (see figure 3 and 4, p.14-15). What would be the biggest expenditure items in 2030? Almost 80% would be absorbed by health insurance fee waivers, social pensions, and child benefits (p.20).

Speaking of the latter… Richardson et al have a concise primer on child benefits – check out for example table 1, p.5 on key parameters on universal and quasi-universal designs. Interesting are also the ensuing figures, including figure 2, p.8, on adequacy (universal schemes provide an average of $296/month for two children), their poverty reducing effects (-43% in US and -11% in Mongolia, figure 3, p.10), and the handy annex 1 with descriptive statistics for 47 countries inclusive of linked resources (h/t Ian Orton). Bonus: the Solomon Islands recently unveiled a new national children policy.

Lots of hype around the theme… but what’s the progress of social protection in tapping climate funds? The big question is posed by Sengupta and Sivanu who examined 146 projects receiving $170+ million from five climate funds in 2022 (GEF, LDCF, SCCF, AF, GCF and PPCR/CIF). Key findings? Go straight to p.14 for an elegant list of 7 insights… spoiler alert: less than 10% of the projects were social protection-related.

BTW, there are several interesting resources on climate: one, by BRAC, shows how India’s livelihood programs adapted to extreme heat, e.g., see the Enhancing Heat Resilience in Jodhpur (p.6); an 11-minute video documentary displays successful resilience approaches for greening the Sahel; Robayo-Abril et al discuss the compounding effects of poverty-induced and risk-induced vulnerability in El Salvador; and a paper on Haiti by Bacarreza et al found that “disaster preparedness is generally low, with the poorest households experiencing the most significant challenges”: for instance, in 2021 only 9% of households had access to an emergency plan, and less than one-quarter had committees or community-trained members for disaster response.

Africa! An article by D’Errico et assessed the provision of food and cash transfers to host and refugee communities in Uganda during the pandemic. These actually not only weren’t scale up, but declined over the crisis and neither form had a strong effect on food security. In the same country, a paper by Asiimwe et al calls for redirecting ODA to pay for cash transfers to households (“super cash transfers”). And on one of the biggest, and at times underrated, megatrends: Africa’s stunning pace of urbanization. A paper by Combes et al estimates at current rates, by 2050 more than 1.26 billion people will be living in the region’s urban areas, more than 2.5 times today’s level.

News on the humanitarian front? The February edition of Perry’s “humanitarian evidence and discourse summary” is out, including featuring 32 materials; the February monthly collection of STAAR resources includes an interesting humanitarian paper on multipurpose cash assistance in Ukraine; SPIAC-B lays out 9 principles for connecting humanitarian and social protection systems; a fascinating article by Elayah et al shows that select NGOs in Yemen can help mediate between conflicting authorities and facilitate the process of post-conflict state building; and Haroun reports on Darfur’s neglected refugee crisis.

Final assortment: Rodrik speaks about the new economics of industrial policy; an online course on social protection data privacy has just been launched; DCI is hosting an event on lessons from Indonesia’s Prakerja in optimizing social protection and labor market policies (March 7); WIEGO has a podcast on registration for social protection In Cambodia; in the US state of Arizona, a measure to “prohibit the state from enacting any guaranteed basic income programs” passed the House and is headed to Arizona’s Senate next; and a call for papers is out for a workshop on social protection for informal workers (June 4-6).