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...

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Main Authors: Filmer, Deon, Friedman, Jed, Kandpal, Eeshani, Onishi, Junko
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
id okr-10986-29557
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-295572022-07-18T00:23:26Z Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children Filmer, Deon Friedman, Jed Kandpal, Eeshani Onishi, Junko NUTRITION CASH TRANSFERS FOOD PRICES GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM EFFECTS SPILLOVER EFFECT POVERTY REDUCTION STUNTING HEALTH MARKET 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. 2018-03-30T18:16:36Z 2018-03-30T18:16:36Z 2018-03 Working Paper 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 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8377 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 East Asia and Pacific Philippines
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic NUTRITION
CASH TRANSFERS
FOOD PRICES
GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM EFFECTS
SPILLOVER EFFECT
POVERTY REDUCTION
STUNTING
HEALTH MARKET
spellingShingle NUTRITION
CASH TRANSFERS
FOOD PRICES
GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM EFFECTS
SPILLOVER EFFECT
POVERTY REDUCTION
STUNTING
HEALTH MARKET
Filmer, Deon
Friedman, Jed
Kandpal, Eeshani
Onishi, Junko
Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children
geographic_facet East Asia and Pacific
Philippines
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8377
description 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.
format Working Paper
author Filmer, Deon
Friedman, Jed
Kandpal, Eeshani
Onishi, Junko
author_facet Filmer, Deon
Friedman, Jed
Kandpal, Eeshani
Onishi, Junko
author_sort Filmer, Deon
title Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children
title_short Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children
title_full Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children
title_fullStr Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children
title_full_unstemmed Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children
title_sort cash transfers, food prices, and nutrition impacts on nonbeneficiary children
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2018
url 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
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