Evaluating Emergency Programs
Emergency programs are designed to soften the impact of economic crises-income shocks experienced by an entire community or country-on consumption and human capital accumulation. Of particular concern are poor people: as a result of inadequate savi...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/12/1660271/evaluating-emergency-programs http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19418 |
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okr-10986-19418 |
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oai_dc |
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Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
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World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
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World Bank |
| language |
English en_US |
| topic |
ECONOMIC CRISIS ECONOMIC SHOCKS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE EMERGENCY SUPPORT SOCIAL FUNDS TRAINING PROGRAMS TARGETED SUBSIDIES GOVERNMENT TRANSFER OF FUNDS INVESTMENT PROGRAMS INTERGOVERNMENTAL TRANSFERS PROJECT EVALUATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS WELFARE-TO-WORK TRANSITION ANTIPOVERTY PROGRAM BENCHMARK BENEFICIARIES BUREAUCRACIES CAPITAL INVESTMENTS CENTRAL GOVERNMENTS CONSUMERS CONSUMPTION INCREASES CROWDING OUT DEBT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS DISCOUNT RATES DISCOUNTED VALUE DIVIDENDS ECONOMIC GROWTH ECONOMIC THEORY EMPLOYMENT EXTERNALITIES FULL EMPLOYMENT GDP HUMAN CAPITAL INCOME INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS INSURANCE INTEREST RATE INTERMEDIATE INPUTS INTRINSIC VALUE LABOR INPUTS LDCS LIVING STANDARDS MARGINAL UTILITY MORAL HAZARD MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS MUNICIPALITIES OVERHEAD COSTS PERMANENT INCOME PERMANENT INCOME HYPOTHESIS POLICY MAKERS POLITICAL ECONOMY POVERTY REDUCTION PRESENT VALUE PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAMS PROJECT EVALUATION RELATIVE VALUE RISK AVERSION SAFETY NETS SAPS SAVINGS SMOOTHING CONSUMPTION SOCIAL INVESTMENT FUNDS SOCIAL SAFETY NETS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT TARGETING TRADEOFFS TRAINING CENTERS TRAINING PROGRAMS TRANSPORT UNDERLYING PROBLEM UNEMPLOYMENT WAGES WEALTH WELFARE FUNCTION |
| spellingShingle |
ECONOMIC CRISIS ECONOMIC SHOCKS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE EMERGENCY SUPPORT SOCIAL FUNDS TRAINING PROGRAMS TARGETED SUBSIDIES GOVERNMENT TRANSFER OF FUNDS INVESTMENT PROGRAMS INTERGOVERNMENTAL TRANSFERS PROJECT EVALUATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS WELFARE-TO-WORK TRANSITION ANTIPOVERTY PROGRAM BENCHMARK BENEFICIARIES BUREAUCRACIES CAPITAL INVESTMENTS CENTRAL GOVERNMENTS CONSUMERS CONSUMPTION INCREASES CROWDING OUT DEBT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS DISCOUNT RATES DISCOUNTED VALUE DIVIDENDS ECONOMIC GROWTH ECONOMIC THEORY EMPLOYMENT EXTERNALITIES FULL EMPLOYMENT GDP HUMAN CAPITAL INCOME INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS INSURANCE INTEREST RATE INTERMEDIATE INPUTS INTRINSIC VALUE LABOR INPUTS LDCS LIVING STANDARDS MARGINAL UTILITY MORAL HAZARD MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS MUNICIPALITIES OVERHEAD COSTS PERMANENT INCOME PERMANENT INCOME HYPOTHESIS POLICY MAKERS POLITICAL ECONOMY POVERTY REDUCTION PRESENT VALUE PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAMS PROJECT EVALUATION RELATIVE VALUE RISK AVERSION SAFETY NETS SAPS SAVINGS SMOOTHING CONSUMPTION SOCIAL INVESTMENT FUNDS SOCIAL SAFETY NETS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT TARGETING TRADEOFFS TRAINING CENTERS TRAINING PROGRAMS TRANSPORT UNDERLYING PROBLEM UNEMPLOYMENT WAGES WEALTH WELFARE FUNCTION Maloney, William F. Evaluating Emergency Programs |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 2728 |
| description |
Emergency programs are designed to
soften the impact of economic crises-income shocks
experienced by an entire community or country-on consumption
and human capital accumulation. Of particular concern are
poor people: as a result of inadequate savings or inadequate
access to credit or insurance markets, the poor are unable
to draw on resources from better times to offset a loss in
income today. Further, the systemic nature of the shocks
means that risk cannot be effectively pooled through local
informal insurance mechanisms. Emergency interventions have
included social funds, workfare programs, training programs,
conditional transfers (linked to health center visits or
children's school attendance, for example), and
traditional direct, unconditional transfers in kind (such as
communal tables or targeted food handouts). The author
highlights some conceptual problems in choosing among these
options and evaluating one program of a certain type
relative to another. It argues that most such interventions
can be thought of as containing both a transfer and an
investment component and that their evaluation as emergency
programs needs to more explicitly incorporate the
intertemporal nature of their design. More specifically, the
mandated investments in physical or human capital will
benefit the poor, but only in the future-after the
crisis-and their implementation diverts resources from
alleviating present hardship. This needs to be reflected in
the discount factor used to evaluate these investments.
Maloney argues that the way emergency programs are financed,
particularly the way the burden is shared between central
and municipal governments, also has important implications
for the criteria for evaluation. The analysis suggests that
most conventional means of evaluating projects-net present
value at market discount rates, labor intensity, cost per
job created-may not be relevant or are at least ambiguous in
the context of emergency programs. As a result, policymakers
are left with few "hard" indicators with which to
evaluate such programs. Maloney argues for an approach in
which the policymaker weighs the appropriateness of
deviations from the theoretically "ideal"
benchmark program, which delivers a "smart"
transfer costlessly to the target beneficiary, and discusses
the arguments for or against these deviations. The modest
goal of the proposed approach is to clarify the key issues
and provide more solid grounding for the necessarily
subjective judgment calls that policymakers will inevitably
have to make. |
| format |
Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper |
| author |
Maloney, William F. |
| author_facet |
Maloney, William F. |
| author_sort |
Maloney, William F. |
| title |
Evaluating Emergency Programs |
| title_short |
Evaluating Emergency Programs |
| title_full |
Evaluating Emergency Programs |
| title_fullStr |
Evaluating Emergency Programs |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Evaluating Emergency Programs |
| title_sort |
evaluating emergency programs |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2014 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/12/1660271/evaluating-emergency-programs http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19418 |
| _version_ |
1764439812556718080 |
| spelling |
okr-10986-194182021-04-23T14:03:42Z Evaluating Emergency Programs Maloney, William F. ECONOMIC CRISIS ECONOMIC SHOCKS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE EMERGENCY SUPPORT SOCIAL FUNDS TRAINING PROGRAMS TARGETED SUBSIDIES GOVERNMENT TRANSFER OF FUNDS INVESTMENT PROGRAMS INTERGOVERNMENTAL TRANSFERS PROJECT EVALUATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS WELFARE-TO-WORK TRANSITION ANTIPOVERTY PROGRAM BENCHMARK BENEFICIARIES BUREAUCRACIES CAPITAL INVESTMENTS CENTRAL GOVERNMENTS CONSUMERS CONSUMPTION INCREASES CROWDING OUT DEBT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS DISCOUNT RATES DISCOUNTED VALUE DIVIDENDS ECONOMIC GROWTH ECONOMIC THEORY EMPLOYMENT EXTERNALITIES FULL EMPLOYMENT GDP HUMAN CAPITAL INCOME INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS INSURANCE INTEREST RATE INTERMEDIATE INPUTS INTRINSIC VALUE LABOR INPUTS LDCS LIVING STANDARDS MARGINAL UTILITY MORAL HAZARD MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS MUNICIPALITIES OVERHEAD COSTS PERMANENT INCOME PERMANENT INCOME HYPOTHESIS POLICY MAKERS POLITICAL ECONOMY POVERTY REDUCTION PRESENT VALUE PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAMS PROJECT EVALUATION RELATIVE VALUE RISK AVERSION SAFETY NETS SAPS SAVINGS SMOOTHING CONSUMPTION SOCIAL INVESTMENT FUNDS SOCIAL SAFETY NETS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT TARGETING TRADEOFFS TRAINING CENTERS TRAINING PROGRAMS TRANSPORT UNDERLYING PROBLEM UNEMPLOYMENT WAGES WEALTH WELFARE FUNCTION Emergency programs are designed to soften the impact of economic crises-income shocks experienced by an entire community or country-on consumption and human capital accumulation. Of particular concern are poor people: as a result of inadequate savings or inadequate access to credit or insurance markets, the poor are unable to draw on resources from better times to offset a loss in income today. Further, the systemic nature of the shocks means that risk cannot be effectively pooled through local informal insurance mechanisms. Emergency interventions have included social funds, workfare programs, training programs, conditional transfers (linked to health center visits or children's school attendance, for example), and traditional direct, unconditional transfers in kind (such as communal tables or targeted food handouts). The author highlights some conceptual problems in choosing among these options and evaluating one program of a certain type relative to another. It argues that most such interventions can be thought of as containing both a transfer and an investment component and that their evaluation as emergency programs needs to more explicitly incorporate the intertemporal nature of their design. More specifically, the mandated investments in physical or human capital will benefit the poor, but only in the future-after the crisis-and their implementation diverts resources from alleviating present hardship. This needs to be reflected in the discount factor used to evaluate these investments. Maloney argues that the way emergency programs are financed, particularly the way the burden is shared between central and municipal governments, also has important implications for the criteria for evaluation. The analysis suggests that most conventional means of evaluating projects-net present value at market discount rates, labor intensity, cost per job created-may not be relevant or are at least ambiguous in the context of emergency programs. As a result, policymakers are left with few "hard" indicators with which to evaluate such programs. Maloney argues for an approach in which the policymaker weighs the appropriateness of deviations from the theoretically "ideal" benchmark program, which delivers a "smart" transfer costlessly to the target beneficiary, and discusses the arguments for or against these deviations. The modest goal of the proposed approach is to clarify the key issues and provide more solid grounding for the necessarily subjective judgment calls that policymakers will inevitably have to make. 2014-08-19T16:34:02Z 2014-08-19T16:34:02Z 2001-12 http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/12/1660271/evaluating-emergency-programs http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19418 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 2728 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research |