Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children
Cash transfer programs may generate significant general equilibrium effects that can detract from the anti-poverty goals of the program. Data from a randomized evaluation of a Philippine cash transfer program targeted to poor households show that a...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/989031522077749796/General-equilibrium-effects-of-targeted-cash-transfers-nutrition-impacts-on-non-beneficiary-children http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29557 |
| Summary: | Cash transfer programs may generate
significant general equilibrium effects that can detract
from the anti-poverty goals of the program. Data from a
randomized evaluation of a Philippine cash transfer program
targeted to poor households show that a 9 percent increase
in village income significantly raised the prices of
perishable protein-rich foods while leaving other food
prices unaffected. The price changes are largest in areas
with the highest program saturation, where the shock to
village income is on the order of 15 percent and persists
more than 2.5 years after program introduction. Although
significantly improving nutrition related outcomes among
beneficiary children, the cash transfer worsened those same
indicators among non-beneficiary children. The stunting rate
of young non-beneficiary children increased by eleven
percentage points, with even greater increases in the most
saturated areas. Another potentially related spillover
arises in local health markets: formal health care
utilization by mothers and children also declined among
non-beneficiary households. Failing to consider such local
general equilibrium effects can overstate the net benefit of
targeted cash transfers. In areas where individual targeting
of social programs covers the majority of households,
offering the program on a universal basis should avoid such
negative impacts at little additional cost. |
|---|