Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program

Interventions in highly insecure and fragile contexts are always confronted with the latent risk of not being able to implement the program as intended. Despite its high policy relevance, little is known about the impacts of program disruption or c...

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Main Authors:	Muller, Angelika, Pape, Utz, Ralston, Laura
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2019
Subjects:	CASH TRANSFERS RISK AVERSION IMPACT EVALUATION VIOLENT CONFLICT TRUST
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/282001568644679290/Broken-Promises-Evaluating-an-Incomplete-Cash-Transfer-Program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32424

id	okr-10986-32424
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-324242022-09-19T12:16:36Z Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program Muller, Angelika Pape, Utz Ralston, Laura CASH TRANSFERS RISK AVERSION IMPACT EVALUATION VIOLENT CONFLICT TRUST Interventions in highly insecure and fragile contexts are always confronted with the latent risk of not being able to implement the program as intended. Despite its high policy relevance, little is known about the impacts of program disruption or cancellation on beneficiaries. This study uses the unplanned cancellation of the South Sudan Youth Business Start-Up Grant Program to assess the socioeconomic, behavioral, and psychological consequences of a program that fails to be implemented as intended. Originally planned as a randomized trial, the Youth Startup Business Grant Program consisted of an unconditional cash grant combined with a business and life skills training targeting the youth in South Sudan. Due to the intensification of violence in the country, the disbursement of the grant was terminated in late 2016 before most of the intended beneficiaries had accessed the grant. The study uses survey data from face-to-face interviews and experimental data from lotteries, trust games, and a list experiment to assess the consequences of the cancellation in a comprehensive form. The empirical analysis employs instrumental variable regressions to control for individual characteristics that might have made it more likely to access the grant before disbursement was frozen. The results show that participants who received the originally planned treatment displayed significant improvements in their consumption, savings, and psychological well-being. However, participants who vainly expected to receive the cash grant showed reduced levels of consumption and women among this subgroup also experienced strong reductions in their trust level. In addition, the study finds some evidence that these women were less likely to migrate. 2019-09-19T19:16:31Z 2019-09-19T19:16:31Z 2019-09 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/282001568644679290/Broken-Promises-Evaluating-an-Incomplete-Cash-Transfer-Program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32424 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9016 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 Africa South Sudan
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	CASH TRANSFERS RISK AVERSION IMPACT EVALUATION VIOLENT CONFLICT TRUST
spellingShingle	CASH TRANSFERS RISK AVERSION IMPACT EVALUATION VIOLENT CONFLICT TRUST Muller, Angelika Pape, Utz Ralston, Laura Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program
geographic_facet	Africa South Sudan
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9016
description	Interventions in highly insecure and fragile contexts are always confronted with the latent risk of not being able to implement the program as intended. Despite its high policy relevance, little is known about the impacts of program disruption or cancellation on beneficiaries. This study uses the unplanned cancellation of the South Sudan Youth Business Start-Up Grant Program to assess the socioeconomic, behavioral, and psychological consequences of a program that fails to be implemented as intended. Originally planned as a randomized trial, the Youth Startup Business Grant Program consisted of an unconditional cash grant combined with a business and life skills training targeting the youth in South Sudan. Due to the intensification of violence in the country, the disbursement of the grant was terminated in late 2016 before most of the intended beneficiaries had accessed the grant. The study uses survey data from face-to-face interviews and experimental data from lotteries, trust games, and a list experiment to assess the consequences of the cancellation in a comprehensive form. The empirical analysis employs instrumental variable regressions to control for individual characteristics that might have made it more likely to access the grant before disbursement was frozen. The results show that participants who received the originally planned treatment displayed significant improvements in their consumption, savings, and psychological well-being. However, participants who vainly expected to receive the cash grant showed reduced levels of consumption and women among this subgroup also experienced strong reductions in their trust level. In addition, the study finds some evidence that these women were less likely to migrate.
format	Working Paper
author	Muller, Angelika Pape, Utz Ralston, Laura
author_facet	Muller, Angelika Pape, Utz Ralston, Laura
author_sort	Muller, Angelika
title	Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program
title_short	Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program
title_full	Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program
title_fullStr	Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program
title_full_unstemmed	Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program
title_sort	broken promises : evaluating an incomplete cash transfer program
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2019
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/282001568644679290/Broken-Promises-Evaluating-an-Incomplete-Cash-Transfer-Program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32424
_version_	1764476520821161984

Broken Promises : Evaluating an Incomplete Cash Transfer Program

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