Urban Networks and Targeting: Evidence from Liberia

Abstract

To solicit information from a social network in urban Monrovia, Liberia, we ask community members to assess their neighbors' poverty and assist in targeting a cash transfer. We find little evidence that local leaders, randomly selected neighbors, or neighbors nominated by fellow community members can accurately assess whether others in their community are among the poorest. Yet, all three groups target transfers to the poor modestly better than would be attributable to chance but worse than proxy-means-test-based targeting. We conclude that community advice provides some information for targeting but there are significant information frictions in networks in Monrovia.

It Makes a Village: Child Care and Prosociality *

“…Recently, Cappelen et al (2020) documents how childcare causally influence children's prosocial preferences. Beaman et al, 2018), public health interventions (Kim et al, 2015) and poverty-alleviation programs (Beaman et al, 2021b). Our findings that help with child care matters more than other social, risk-sharing, and productive networks as a source of prosociality, and confer important socio-cognitive benefits to children, highlight child care networks as a crucial but understudied dimension of social networks in low income economies.…”

Small Savings Scheme of the Post Office and Savings Habit of People: The Role of Financial Consultant

“…So, the structural changes in the financial sector and diffusion of technology boost productivity within the sector and enhance profitability. As a result, it promotes the economic growth of the nation (Abid et al, 2022; Beaman et al, 2021; Mohanta et al, 2017).…”