Is it better to provide just information to parents or give a combo of cash and info? And does the framing of cash transfers matter? An experiment by Fujii et al explores these questions in rural Bangladesh. An “SMS group” of parents simply got a text/audio message like “last week, your child has attended X school days and missed Y school days”; then 2 types of conditional cash transfer (CCT) were provided: one had a “gain” framing, with parents being informed that “last week, your child has attended X school days and missed Y school days; hence you gained Z taka and have a balance of T taka”; and those in a CCT “loss” arm got a text indicating “last week, your child has attended X school days and missed Y school days. You have lost Z taka and your balance has decreased to T taka”. Results? Drum roll… the CCTs were twice as effective than SMS is bolstering attendance (+11 and +5 percentage points, respectively); but CCTs were also twice as expensive (SMS cost was $0.14 while CCTs’ $0.3/student/day). There was no statistically significant difference in the effects of CCT gain and loss arms, and the optimal transfer size was identified at $0.22-$0.24/day (or about ¼ of child daily wages). BTW, both SMS and CCTs increase girls’ aspirations (p.25) and reduce early marriage among them (p.28).
A trio of other CCTs studies! In Tanzania, Kisiwa found that CCTs increased access to health services by 70% and school attendance by 32 days in a year; in the case of Colombia, Arena et al argue that CCTs did not decrease 7 forms of vulnerability linked to climate change; and Girado calls out the “huge gap in understanding between providers and beneficiaries and expose the unnecessary burdens that CCTs place” among indigenous women in the Philippines provinces of Palawan and Kalinga.
Let’s stay in Asia: Ecker et al simulate the ability of various social assistance programs in mitigating COVID-19 in Bangladesh and Myanmar. The authors compare a baseline scenario in 2019 with a hypothetical endline in the same period of 2021 (i.e., July-September, when both countries were affected by the Delta variant). They then consider five hypothetical social assistance programs (cash transfers, and 4 combinations of fortified and non-fortified vouchers and in-kind food transfers) – all for an amount equivalent to $13/month provided to the poorest 40%. Transfers’ mitigating effects are generally modest for poverty, food consumption and nutrient gaps. In fact, the resulting food consumption gaps are too large for being offset by the relatively small transfers. However, in terms of nutrient gaps fortified rice almost eliminates them for iron, vitamin A, and folate. Similar effects (albeit lower in magnitude) are observed when food vouchers replace standard for fortified rice (see table 3, p.23).
Bonus on “cash vs inkind”: Arendt and Christensen analyze the comparative redistributive effects of cash and in-kind transfers in Denmark. They document that in-kind transfers “mainly redistribute income across age groups”, while for cash transfers redistribution “takes place both within and across age groups”.
A paper by Men et merges the last two mentioned themes, namely high-income countries and food insecurity. Their evaluation examines the food security effects of the Canada Child Benefit program: the scheme itself has an interesting history (merging two earlier scheme) and benefit structure (featuring various adjustments by children age, 2 top-ups, local variants), as well as some minor claw-back via taxes which make it nearly universal. The evaluation shows that the child benefit ($724 on average) was associated with a 2.89 percentage points lower probability of being food insecure among recipients with children aged less than 6 years of age.
A paradox in the neighboring United States: Shah and Gennetian show that children are the largest beneficiaries of the country’s social protection programs, including a wide range of unconditional transfers. However, “unconditional cash aid on children’s development, and on reducing socioeconomic inequalities in children’s future economic and health outcomes, are not well understood”. Why such blind spot? Among the key factors is an ingrained fear of disincentives among particular groups, as epitomized by “… the historical focus on labor supply effects of cash transfers in the economics literature, and on maternal labor supply in particular”.
Speaking of incentives, during the early stages of the COVID‐19 Australia’s response included, among others, expanded cash transfers to the working‐age population, wage subsidies, and allowing lump sum withdrawals from private pensions. About 40% of the population participated in at least one of these programs over a year – see for instance the very cool graphs on p.8 (transfers over time), p.14 (replacement rates) and p.16 (support by age). Hence Breunig and Sainsbury ask… at what point is there ‘too much of a good thing’ with emergency assistance? Bonus: Mantyneva et al found strong path dependence among pandemic social protection responses in 10 OECD countries.
Bonus on COVID-19 estimates: Viollaz et al show that the use of employment projections based on past data could underestimate the magnitude of job losses and poverty (which was the case in 4 out of 15 examined middle-income country cases).
Since I mentioned both universality and unconditionality, Kidd et al have a 22-point playbook for advocates of universal programs. Half of those points focus on terminology, including guidance to avoid a range of terms (i.e., the “poor”, “vulnerable groups”, “social assistance”, “non-contributory”, “social safety nets”, “grants”, “cash transfers”, “shock-responsive social protection”, “cash-plus”, “social registries”, and “social protection”); instead, it is suggested to adopt language like “social security”, “citizens pensions”, or “personal independence payments”. But not all forms of targeting are rejected (there is space for a “residual” level of assistance), while also accepting targeting via financing as a “fall-back position” – see illustrations of claw-backs via taxation on the better-off around the middle of the distribution for adequacy of benefits (figure 3.12, p.51) and a gradual tapering in multi-tier systems (figure 3.13, p.52).
What do we know about social assistance for displaced populations? A great compilation of case studies by Holmes and Lowe shows that national transfer programs often exclude refugees, such as in Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Uganda, and Iraq. However, there are signs of change at program-level with several schemes featuring provisions for refugees (e.g., Ethiopia’s UPSNP, Makani in Jordan, a cash pilot in the Iraqi Kurdistan region); also, a similar level of inclusiveness is expected in upcoming policies in Kenya and Sudan. What about internally displaced populations? Here is less about restrictive legislation, and more about fiscal, political and delivery constraints (e.g., Ethiopia, Iraq, and Sudan). Bonus: a “beyond rights” paper by Zaman et al suggests that “national systems of social protection provision and alternative approaches [for] displaced people are currently necessary, although a language of rights is only applicable to the former”.
Final assortment: a duet of ILO papers on social protection and just transition and on fiscal space for social protection in Albania. GPPi evaluates WFP’s policy on peacebuilding in transition settings. If you are in London, on March 1st Alex de Waal will speak about “Hunger in War Economies”, while two events are coming up on March 9 – the 13th Poverty and Social Protection Conference and a seminar on Financing Gender-Responsive Social Protection Systems. And if you missed the social protection and informality event here is the video recording.