Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program

In theory, the informational advantage of decentralizing the eligibility criteria for a federal antipoverty program could come at a large cost to the program's performance in reaching the poor nationally. Whether this happens in practice depends on the size of the local-income effect on the eli...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Ravallion, Martin
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	World Bank 2012
Subjects:	absolute poverty community groups fiscal constraints household survey impact on poverty income income inequality lack of information political influence poor poor areas poor families poor people poverty impact poverty line public spending redistributive policies social policies social spending targeting
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4492

id	okr-10986-4492
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-44922021-04-23T14:02:18Z Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program Ravallion, Martin absolute poverty community groups fiscal constraints household survey impact on poverty income income inequality lack of information political influence poor poor areas poor families poor people poverty impact poverty line public spending redistributive policies social policies social spending targeting In theory, the informational advantage of decentralizing the eligibility criteria for a federal antipoverty program could come at a large cost to the program's performance in reaching the poor nationally. Whether this happens in practice depends on the size of the local-income effect on the eligibility cutoffs. China's Di Bao program provides a case study. Poorer municipalities adopt systematically lower thresholds—roughly negating intercity differences in need for the program and generating considerable horizontal inequity, so that poor families in rich cities fare better. The income effect is not strong enough to undermine the program's overall poverty impact; other factors, including incomplete coverage of those eligible, appear to matter more. 2012-03-30T07:12:37Z 2012-03-30T07:12:37Z 2009-02-28 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4492 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank Journal Article East Asia and Pacific China
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	absolute poverty community groups fiscal constraints household survey impact on poverty income income inequality lack of information political influence poor poor areas poor families poor people poverty impact poverty line public spending redistributive policies social policies social spending targeting
spellingShingle	absolute poverty community groups fiscal constraints household survey impact on poverty income income inequality lack of information political influence poor poor areas poor families poor people poverty impact poverty line public spending redistributive policies social policies social spending targeting Ravallion, Martin Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program
geographic_facet	East Asia and Pacific China
description	In theory, the informational advantage of decentralizing the eligibility criteria for a federal antipoverty program could come at a large cost to the program's performance in reaching the poor nationally. Whether this happens in practice depends on the size of the local-income effect on the eligibility cutoffs. China's Di Bao program provides a case study. Poorer municipalities adopt systematically lower thresholds—roughly negating intercity differences in need for the program and generating considerable horizontal inequity, so that poor families in rich cities fare better. The income effect is not strong enough to undermine the program's overall poverty impact; other factors, including incomplete coverage of those eligible, appear to matter more.
format	Journal Article
author	Ravallion, Martin
author_facet	Ravallion, Martin
author_sort	Ravallion, Martin
title	Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program
title_short	Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program
title_full	Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program
title_fullStr	Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program
title_full_unstemmed	Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program
title_sort	decentralizing eligibility for a federal antipoverty program
publisher	World Bank
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4492
_version_	1764391599250341888

Decentralizing Eligibility for a Federal Antipoverty Program

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