Jump-Starting Self-Employment? Evidence Among Welfare Participants in Argentina
One important concern of governments in developing countries is how to phase out large safety net programs. The authors evaluate the short-run effects of one possible exit strategy-programs that promote self-employment-in Argentina. They provide ev...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2007/06/7766427/jump-starting-self-employment-evidence-among-welfare-participants-argentina http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7450 |
| Summary: | One important concern of governments in
developing countries is how to phase out large safety net
programs. The authors evaluate the short-run effects of one
possible exit strategy-programs that promote
self-employment-in Argentina. They provide evidence that a
small fraction of beneficiaries were attracted by this
program. Overall, potential participants to self-employment
are more likely to be female household heads and more
educated beneficiaries relative to the average Jefes
beneficiaries. Using nonexperimental methods, the authors
show that participation in the program does affect the labor
supply of participants, by reducing the probability of
having an outside job, especially for males, and increasing
the total number of hours worked. But the intervention fails
to produce on average income gains to participating
individuals and households in the short run. The fact that a
small subset of former welfare beneficiaries are attracted
to the program, coupled with the fact that only a subset of
participants (younger and more educated beneficiaries, and
with previous self-employment experience) benefited from
participation has important implications for this
intervention to represent a viable exit strategy from welfare. |
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