Can Cash Transfers Help Households Escape an Inter-Generational Poverty Trap?

Abstract

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The Medium Term Impacts of Cash and In-Kind Food Transfers on Learning

“…First, we add to the literature that studies the design and implementation of transfer programs (Baird et al, 2011, Barrera-Osorio et al, 2011, Glewwe and Muralidharan, 2016. Consistent with the results in previous studies (Baird et al, 2016, Araujo et al, 2016, Baez and Camacho, 2011, Akresh et al, 2013, we find that unconditional transfers do not lead to long term improvements in human capital outcomes. Second, we add to the literature that studies how micronutrient consumption -or lack thereof -in early life contributes to learning (Almond et al, 2011, Maluccio et al, 2009, Feyrer et al, 2017, Chong et al, 2016.…”

“…In addition to addressing short-term needs, many transfer programs also aim to increase children's human capital as a means to improve lifetime outcomes and promote intergenerational mobility. Our paper contributes to the small and growing literature on the medium-and long-run impacts of transfer programs (Barham et al, 2019, Araujo et al, 2016, Millán et al, 2020 by studying the how unconditional cash and in-kind food transfers impacted the standardized test scores of primary school children in poor and remote areas of Mexico, 4 to 10 years after transfers were first received.…”

Planned resettlement to avoid climatic hazards: What prospects for just outcomes in China?

“…We also find support for this alternative to resettlement in the corpus of social policy, social justice and development literatures. Although not without contention (Carter et al, 2016;Araujo et al, 2017), viewed broadly, cash transfer programmes have been shown to reduce poverty, increase employment rates, and improve education and vaccination rates (Ballard, 2013;Ferguson, 2015;Hjelm et al, 2017). Here we see the potential of cash transfers to bolster the economic and social determinants of adaptive capacity and enable people to exercise their own agency in ways that state-driven planned resettlement projects with uneven outcomes cannot.…”

Long-Term Impacts of Alternative Approaches to Increase Schooling: Evidence from a Scholarship Program in Cambodia

“…Most of the literature on CCTs and scholarships focuses on schooling and cognitive skill outcomes, with some exceptions that consider the impact of transfers on political and social factors, household consumption smoothing (Sparrow 2007), labor market outcomes (Araujo et al 2016;Filmer and Schady 2014;Parker and Vogl 2018;Silva and Sumarto 2015), or health (Cruz et al 2017). Few studies analyze the impacts on various outcome dimensions simultaneously.…”