The Targeting Benefit of Conditional Cash Transfers
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are a popular type of social welfare program that make payments to households conditional on human capital investments in children. Compared to unconditional cash transfers (UCTs), CCTs may exclude some low-income...
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/401581578321660452/The-Targeting-Benefit-of-Conditional-Cash-Transfers http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33150 |
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okr-10986-331502022-09-20T00:12:16Z The Targeting Benefit of Conditional Cash Transfers Bergstrom, Katy Dodds, William CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER TARGETING SOCIAL ASSISTANCE EDUCATION HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are a popular type of social welfare program that make payments to households conditional on human capital investments in children. Compared to unconditional cash transfers (UCTs), CCTs may exclude some low-income households as access is tied to normal investments in children. This paper argues that conditionalities on children's school enrollment offer an unexplored targeting benefit over UCTs: CCTs target money to households that forgo a discrete amount of child income. This paper shows that the size of this targeting benefit is directly related to the distribution of parental incomes, the size of forgone child incomes, and two elasticities already popular in the literature: the income effect of a UCT and the price effect of a CCT. These elasticities are estimated for a large CCT program in rural Mexico, Progresa, using variation in transfers to younger siblings to identify income effects. In this setting, the analysis finds that the targeting benefit is almost as large as the cost of excluding some low-income households; this implies that 41 percent of the Progresa budget should go to a CCT over a UCT based on targeting grounds alone. 2020-01-09T15:44:11Z 2020-01-09T15:44:11Z 2020-01 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/401581578321660452/The-Targeting-Benefit-of-Conditional-Cash-Transfers http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33150 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9101 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Latin America & Caribbean Mexico |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English |
| topic |
CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER TARGETING SOCIAL ASSISTANCE EDUCATION HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT |
| spellingShingle |
CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER TARGETING SOCIAL ASSISTANCE EDUCATION HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT Bergstrom, Katy Dodds, William The Targeting Benefit of Conditional Cash Transfers |
| geographic_facet |
Latin America & Caribbean Mexico |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9101 |
| description |
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are a
popular type of social welfare program that make payments to
households conditional on human capital investments in
children. Compared to unconditional cash transfers (UCTs),
CCTs may exclude some low-income households as access is
tied to normal investments in children. This paper argues
that conditionalities on children's school enrollment
offer an unexplored targeting benefit over UCTs: CCTs target
money to households that forgo a discrete amount of child
income. This paper shows that the size of this targeting
benefit is directly related to the distribution of parental
incomes, the size of forgone child incomes, and two
elasticities already popular in the literature: the income
effect of a UCT and the price effect of a CCT. These
elasticities are estimated for a large CCT program in rural
Mexico, Progresa, using variation in transfers to younger
siblings to identify income effects. In this setting, the
analysis finds that the targeting benefit is almost as large
as the cost of excluding some low-income households; this
implies that 41 percent of the Progresa budget should go to
a CCT over a UCT based on targeting grounds alone. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
Bergstrom, Katy Dodds, William |
| author_facet |
Bergstrom, Katy Dodds, William |
| author_sort |
Bergstrom, Katy |
| title |
The Targeting Benefit of Conditional Cash Transfers |
| title_short |
The Targeting Benefit of Conditional Cash Transfers |
| title_full |
The Targeting Benefit of Conditional Cash Transfers |
| title_fullStr |
The Targeting Benefit of Conditional Cash Transfers |
| title_full_unstemmed |
The Targeting Benefit of Conditional Cash Transfers |
| title_sort |
targeting benefit of conditional cash transfers |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2020 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/401581578321660452/The-Targeting-Benefit-of-Conditional-Cash-Transfers http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33150 |
| _version_ |
1764478098039898112 |