TY - JOUR
T1 - The short-term impact of unconditional cash transfers
T2 - a replication study of a randomized controlled trial in Kenya
AU - Wang, Hongmei
AU - Luo, Jiangtao
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) through the Replication Programme on Financial Services for the Poor [NA]. This replication study was funded by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). We are thankful to the 3ie reviewers, Dr Benjamin Wood, Dr John Creamer, Dr Eric Djimeu, and Scott Neilitz, as well as several anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments. We thank Nicholas Hein, Fang Qiu, Harlan Sayles and Morshed Alam from Department of Biostatistics at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre for their help with SAS and STATA coding. We give special thanks to the original authors, Dr Johannes Haushofer and Dr Jeremy Shapiro, for kindly sharing their codes, dataset and methodological documents.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2019/10/2
Y1 - 2019/10/2
N2 - Haushofer and Shapiro examined the short-term impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) and the differential impacts by transfer recipient’s gender, timing (monthly versus lump sum) and magnitude, using data collected in a randomised controlled trial from 2011 to 2012 in rural Kenya. The study found the UCT to increase assets, consumption, revenue, food security, and psychological well-being indices, but to have no overall effects on health, education, or female empowerment indices. Compared to lump-sum transfers, monthly transfers improved food security but reduced asset holdings. Large transfers, when compared to small transfers, increased asset holdings and improved the psychological well-being index. This replication study reexamined the main findings of Haushofer and Shapiro’s and reported consistent findings on the overall effects of the UCT and the differences across treatment arms. These findings are sustained in rigorous robustness checks, however, the Principal Component Analysis results suggest a need for further examination of the method of measuring food security, health and psychological well-being.
AB - Haushofer and Shapiro examined the short-term impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) and the differential impacts by transfer recipient’s gender, timing (monthly versus lump sum) and magnitude, using data collected in a randomised controlled trial from 2011 to 2012 in rural Kenya. The study found the UCT to increase assets, consumption, revenue, food security, and psychological well-being indices, but to have no overall effects on health, education, or female empowerment indices. Compared to lump-sum transfers, monthly transfers improved food security but reduced asset holdings. Large transfers, when compared to small transfers, increased asset holdings and improved the psychological well-being index. This replication study reexamined the main findings of Haushofer and Shapiro’s and reported consistent findings on the overall effects of the UCT and the differences across treatment arms. These findings are sustained in rigorous robustness checks, however, the Principal Component Analysis results suggest a need for further examination of the method of measuring food security, health and psychological well-being.
KW - Cash transfer
KW - assets
KW - consumption
KW - health
KW - income
KW - psychological wellbeing
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U2 - 10.1080/19439342.2019.1666900
DO - 10.1080/19439342.2019.1666900
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85073942104
VL - 11
SP - 391
EP - 408
JO - Journal of Development Effectiveness
JF - Journal of Development Effectiveness
SN - 1943-9342
IS - 4
ER -