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Women's control over decision-making within their family, particularly regarding the use of household income, can play an important and long-lasting role in shaping their well-being and that of their children. Cash transfer programs often target women in order to increase their control over household resources. Empirical evidence on the effectiveness of this approach is mixed and suggests the importance of local context. We present evidence on the effect of cash transfers on women's control over decision-making in the MENA region, where little evidence is available and where cultural norms around women's roles differ from more-studied regions. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we identify the impact of Egypt's "Takaful" national cash transfer program on women's control over decision-making and labor supply. Receiving cash transfers mostly reduced women's reported ability to influence household decisions, particularly regarding child healthcare. The loss of control over decision-making was greater for women with less than primary education. Other effects of the program include a decline in women's employment and an increase in men's involvement in spheres of decision-making usually controlled by women. These results are robust to changes in model specification. We present suggestive evidence from mediation analysis that the negative effects on women's control over decision-making was directly related to these declines in employment and increase in men's involvement in female spheres. The negative findings are not wholly supported by complementary qualitative work in which women reported more positive perceptions of the program's impacts.

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This chapter argues that political economy factors, rather than oil wealth, shape the budgetary process and outcomes in Bahrain. Fiscal volatility and excessive current spending (in the form of wages, social welfare, and subsidies) leading to unsustainable non-oil deficits are not fully derived from oil price volatility. Weak institutions, including those underlying the budgetary process, have contributed to some fiscal laxity. These have allowed rulers to use current spending as a channel for the redistribution of oil rents and to secure political stability and allegiance to the regime in a turbulent sociopolitical environment. The budgetary process has been undermined by the structure of the bicameral parliament, while the absence of restrictions on parliament to amend the budget weakens the position of the executive. In the general context of limited transparency and accountability, the government may also be exercising its discretionary powers over the budget execution but this cannot be known.

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* Ultra-poor households are those with PMT scores below 3900; threshold household scores range from 3900 to 5100. While levels differ, ultra-poor households generally have per capita expenditures of EGP100-300; threshold households have per capita expenditures of EGP400-600. figure 1 Program satisfaction with Takaful and Karama Very satisfied 68.07% Somewhat satisfied 21.08% Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 3.61% Somewhat unsatisfied 1.81% Very unsatisfied 5.42%

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