A Comparison of Cash Transfer Programs in the Global North and South

Dwyer, Ryan; Stewart, Kaitlyn; Zhao, Jichun

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4143652

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The findings from Study 1 were consistent with past cash transfer studies in lower-income countries in that overall spending increased but without increased temptation goods spending after the cash transfer ( 13 , 42 ). However, the findings were inconsistent with past studies as the cash transfer had limited impact on cognitive function and subjective well-being on these individuals, presumably because $7,500 was relatively a small amount of money in Vancouver, Canada, representing 12% of the average annual personal income, whereas the average cash transfer in lower-income countries was relatively larger, representing 37% annual personal income ( 19 ). Another contextual factor was that the cash transfer study took place during the development of modular housing in Vancouver, which may have facilitated cash recipients finding stable housing.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 86%

“…Despite the burgeoning evidence, most cash transfer studies to date were conducted in low- and middle-income countries ( 19 ), thus the impact of cash transfers on individuals under poverty in higher-income countries is less well known. The reason for the lack of cash transfer studies in higher-income countries is partly due to policy constraints, such as the benefits cliff where recipients risk losing existing social benefits due to the cash transfer ( 19 ). More critically, there is no experimental evidence on the efficacy of cash transfers in addressing homelessness.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness

Dwyer,

Palepu,

Williams

et al. 2023

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

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Homelessness is an economic and social crisis. In a cluster-randomized controlled trial, we address a core cause of homelessness—lack of money—by providing a one-time unconditional cash transfer of CAD$7,500 to each of 50 individuals experiencing homelessness, with another 65 as controls in Vancouver, BC. Exploratory analyses showed that over 1 y, cash recipients spent fewer days homeless, increased savings and spending with no increase in temptation goods spending, and generated societal net savings of $777 per recipient via reduced time in shelters. Additional experiments revealed public mistrust toward the ability of homeless individuals to manage money and demonstrated interventions to increase public support for a cash transfer policy using counter-stereotypical or utilitarian messaging. Together, this research offers a new approach to address homelessness and provides insights into homelessness reduction policies.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 86%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness

Dwyer,

Palepu,

Williams

et al. 2023

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

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“…Such interventions include attempts towards mainstreaming the idea of basic incomes and conditional cash transfers; provision of limited welfare benefits; government‐funded job guarantee schemes at minimal wages; public distribution of food grains or cooked food at subsidized rates to targeted groups; provision of education vouchers or subsidized health insurances; limited microcredit loans with subsidized interest rates to petty producers, traders and small businesses; and so on. Some of these forms of transfers have also become increasingly widespread in the economies in the global North, particularly after the 2008 global financial crisis and during the COVID‐19 pandemic (Dwyer et al., 2022; Gentilini et al., 2021). This does not, of course, imply that there is a fundamental global restructuring of capital's nature, or its relation with the rest of the society through a process of re‐embedding it within social relations, or even a return to the old forms of welfare state.…”

Section: The Present Conjuncturementioning

confidence: 99%

Contradictions and Crisis in the World of Work: Informality, Precarity and the Pandemic

Kesar¹,

Bhattacharya²,

Banerjee³

2022

Development and Change

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The severe economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global working population can be interpreted as both a fallout from, and a violent assertion of, a larger crisis in the world of work. While this crisis has been attributed to the pre-existing conditions of widespread informality and precarity in the domain of remunerative work, the authors of this article dig deeper to read these conditions and the crisis tendencies as articulations of certain key contradictions that define the world of work in the present conjuncture of global capitalism. The article highlights three specific contradictions: that between capital and labour in the 'interior' space of capital; that between capital and its 'outside'; and those emerging from 'dispersion' of the circuit of capital to its 'outside'. The 'outside' is the economic space that exists within the capitalist social formation but represents the domain of unwaged work carried out in the processes of non-capitalist production and distribution, both within and outside the space of the household. The authors argue that the expanded reproduction of capital has sharpened this triad of contradictions in the present conjuncture in specific ways in the global South and the global North through continuous informalization of work, exclusion of masses of population from the 'interior' domain of capital, and insistent dispersion of the circuit of capital to its 'outside' through various forms of 'non-standard' labour processes and work arrangements. The article provides some illustrations of how these processes have registered and contributed to the crisis situation in the times of the pandemic. PANDEMIC, CRISIS AND CONDITIONS OF INFORMALITYThe expression 'crisis' is often used in popular discourse and scholarly imaginations to describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the All authors have contributed equally to this work. We thank the editor of this Forum issue and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on various drafts of the article.

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A Comparison of Cash Transfer Programs in the Global North and South

Cited by 2 publications

References 6 publications

Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness

Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness

Contradictions and Crisis in the World of Work: Informality, Precarity and the Pandemic

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