Cash transfer program and child underweight—Empirical evidence from a causal mediation analysis

Abstract

Despite the existence of a voluminous literature on cash transfer programs, little is known about their impacts on the underweight of children. To fill the knowledge gap, this study uses a unique individual panel data set to analyze how participation in the Children Sponsorship Program (CSP) improves underweight status among needy children and adolescents in Taiwan. This study examines not only the program effect on children's underweight, but also underscores the potential pathways behind the program effect by employing a causal mediation analysis. Our analysis finds that exiting the CSP has a negative impact on the improvement of underweight status. Moreover, eating breakfast every day and receiving pocket money from parents can be two significant mediators that link the effect of exiting the CSP and the change in underweight status among children and adolescents.

Cooperative membership and adoption of green pest control practices: Insights from rice farmers

“…and d 4 are parameters to be estimated; 1i , 2i , 3i and 4i are error terms. The mediation analysis decomposes the total effects into the sum of the direct effects and the indirect effects (Liao et al, 2020;Nie et al, 2021;Zhang, Mishra, et al, 2020). In Equations ( 8)-( 11), a 1 is the total effect of cooperative membership on chemical pesticide expenditures.…”