The Transfer Project, Cash Transfers, and Impact Evaluation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Winters, Paul; Davis, Benjamin; Handa, Sudhanshu; Rossi, Natalia Winder; Yablonski, Jennifer

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198769446.003.0001

Cited by 75 publications

(104 citation statements)

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“…Consistent with other studies on cash transfers, we find that transfers increase initial local incomes for recipient and nonrecipient households (5)(6)(7)(8)(9), increase the demand for environmentally sensitive goods (4,11), increase the price of local natural resources (15), and stimulate production of environmentally sensitive goods in ways mediated by markets (4,(12)(13)(14)36). This lends confidence that our model accurately represents ways in which markets transmit impacts of cash transfers through the local economy.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Cash transfers potentially have both positive and negative impacts. Impact evaluations based on randomized control trials (RCTs) and simulations of expected impacts using local computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling show that conditional and unconditional programs boost incomes and consumption for payment recipients and promote other positive outcomes, such as increased school enrollment and health checkups (5)(6)(7)(8)(9). Impact evaluations also show that indirect benefits reach nonrecipients through local economic spillovers, peer effects, and other factors (8,10).…”

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confidence: 99%

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An integrated bioeconomic local economy-wide assessment of the environmental impacts of poverty programs

Gilliland

Sanchirico

Taylor

2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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A new generation of poverty programs around the globe provides cash payments to poor and vulnerable households. Studies show that these social cash transfer programs create income and welfare benefits for poor households and the local economies where they live. However, this may come at the cost of damaging local environments if cash payments stimulate food production that conflicts with natural resource conservation. Evaluations of the economic impacts of poverty programs do not account for the welfare consequences of environmental impacts, which are potentially large for poor communities closely tied to natural resources. We use an ex-ante policy simulation tool, a bioeconomic local computable general equilibrium model parameterized with microsurvey data, to analyze the expected welfare consequences of environmental degradation caused by a cash transfer program. For a Philippine fishing community that is a net importer of fish, we show that a government cash transfer program initially increases real incomes for all households. However, increased demand for fish leads to a decline in the local fish stock that reduces program benefits. Household groups experience declines in real income benefits of 2–63%, with fishing households suffering the largest declines. Impacts on local fish stocks depend on the extent to which markets link fishing communities to outside regions through trade. Greater market integration can mitigate the fish stock decline, but this reduces the local income benefits of cash transfers.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated bioeconomic local economy-wide assessment of the environmental impacts of poverty programs

Gilliland

Sanchirico

Taylor

2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Empirical evidence suggests that unconditional transfers are a potentially cost-efficient and effective avenue for promoting policy objectives (see, e.g., Kohler and Thornton 2011;Blattman, Fiala, and Martinez 2013). Several recent reports have shown how such payments are especially prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa (compared with Latin America and Asia; IDS 2009; Bastagli et al 2016;Davis et al 2016). In practice, a significant number of conservation payments are, either by design or due to a lack of enforcement, unconditional (see Honey-Ros es et al 2009;Engel 2015).…”

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unconditional Transfers and Tropical Forest Conservation: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Sierra Leone

Wilebore

Voors

Bulte

et al. 2019

American J Agri Economics

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Unconditional conservation payments are increasingly used by non‐governmental conservation organizations to further their environmental objectives. One key objective in many conservation projects that use such unconditional payments schemes is the protection of tropical forest ecosystems in buffer zone areas around protected parks where the scope of instating mandatory restrictions is more limited. We use a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of unconditional livelihood payments to local communities on land use outside a protected area—the Gola Rainforest National Park—which is a biodiversity hotspot on the border of Sierra Leone and Liberia. High resolution RapidEye satellite imagery from before and after the intervention was used to determine land use changes in treated and control villages. We find support for the hypothesis that unconditional payments, in this setting, increase land clearance in the short run. The study constitutes one of the first attempts to use evidence from a randomized control trial to evaluate the efficacy of conservation payments and provides insights for further research.

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“…2 The TP is a joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNICEF and University of North Carolina effort which supports and systemises lessons from impact evaluations of cash transfer programmes in sub-Saharan Africa (for details, see Davis et al, 2016).…”

Section: Description Of the Programme Targeting And Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shaping Cash Transfer Impacts Through ‘Soft-Conditions’: Evidence from Lesotho†

Pace

Daidone

Davis

et al. 2018

Journal of African Economies

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Cash transfer programmes have been shown to have positive effects on a variety of outcomes. While much of the literature focuses on the role of conditionality in achieving desired impact, this paper focuses on the role of 'soft conditionality' implemented through both 'labelling' and 'messaging' in evaluating the impact of the Child Grants Program in Lesotho, an unconditional cash transfer programme targeting poor households with orphans and vulnerable children. Beneficiary households received a clear message that the transfer should be spent on the interest and needs of children. Our findings suggest that 'soft conditionality' does play a role in increasing expenditure for children, especially on education, clothing and footwear. Results indicate in fact that transfer income is spent differently from general income as it exerts both an income and a substitution effect. This behavioural change is confirmed by comparing the ex-ante expected behaviours with the ex-post actual response to the programme. We find that for expenditure categories linked to the well-being of children the expost response was much higher than the ex-ante expected behaviour.

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The Transfer Project, Cash Transfers, and Impact Evaluation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Cited by 75 publications

References 0 publications

An integrated bioeconomic local economy-wide assessment of the environmental impacts of poverty programs

An integrated bioeconomic local economy-wide assessment of the environmental impacts of poverty programs

Unconditional Transfers and Tropical Forest Conservation: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Sierra Leone

Shaping Cash Transfer Impacts Through ‘Soft-Conditions’: Evidence from Lesotho†

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