Publication: Social Transfer Multipliers in Developed and Emerging Countries: The Role of Hand-to-Mouth Consumers
Loading...
Published
2021-04
ISSN
Date
2021-04-19
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper estimates the macroeconomic effects of social transfer payments to individuals for a sample of 23 developed and Latin American countries. The findings show that the social transfer multiplier is 0.3 in developed countries, but 0.9 in Latin American economies. The paper studies the role of hand-to-mouth consumers, who have no access to financial markets and a high marginal propensity to consume, as a first order factor to explain the heterogeneity in the size of social transfer multipliers. Using survey-based data from the Global Findex dataset, the paper finds that the average share of the population living hand-to-mouth is 23 percent in developed economies versus 60 percent in Latin American countries. This evidence is interpreted with a two-agent New Keynesian model. The findings show that the difference in the share of hand-to-mouth consumers explains 80 to 90 percent of the difference in the estimated social transfer multipliers. The paper also documents that the share of hand-to-mouth individuals in emerging countries is in general 47 percent which suggests that a larger social transfer multiplier may be expected for this type of economy.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Bracco, Jessica; Galeano, Luciana; Juarros, Pedro; Riera-Crichton, Daniel; Vuletin, Guillermo. 2021. Social Transfer Multipliers in Developed and Emerging Countries: The Role of Hand-to-Mouth Consumers. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9627. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35450 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Climate and Social Sustainability in Fragility, Conflict, and Violence Contexts(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)Climate change is widely recognized as a driver of violent conflict, but its broader social effects remain less understood. Ignoring these dimensions risks a vicious cycle where climate policies might undermine socially just adaptation. Evidence is still limited on how climate shocks influence political participation, trust, or migration. This paper helps fill that gap by examining links between climate change, conflict, and social sustainability, with a focus on inclusion, resilience, cohesion, and legitimacy. Using secondary data from 2019–24, the study applies simple correlation-based methods to test three hypotheses on the nature, severity, and composition of these associations. The analysis combines multiple climate impact measures, new conflict classifications, recent social sustainability frameworks, and controls for population and geography. The results reveal strong correlations—not causation—between climate events and contexts of fragility, conflict, and violence. Climate impacts are most pronounced in both national and subnational conflict settings. The study also finds robust links between fragility, conflict, and violence and low levels of social sustainability, reflecting its role as both a driver and consequence of conflict. Some dimensions—such as violent events and insecurity—appear weaker in areas most affected by climate shocks. Two of the hypotheses are supported, and one remains inconclusive.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Institutional Capacity for Policy Implementation: An Analytical Framework(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)State capacity is an important prerequisite for policy implementation, yet at the country level it is difficult to measure, assess, and reform. This paper proposes a focus on institutional capacity: the ability of public institutions to implement the specific policy mandates for which they are responsible. Based on a review of existing literature, the paper defines the different dimensions that compose institutional capacity and groups them into two cross-cutting categories: organizational dimensions (personnel, financial resources, information systems, and management practices) and governance dimensions (transparency, independence, and accountability). The paper proposes measures for organizational and governance dimensions using existing data, shows intra-institutional variation of these measures within countries, and discusses how new data could be collected for better measurement of these concepts. Finally, the paper illustrates how the framework can be used to diagnose the sources of common problems related to weak policy implementation.Publication South Africa’s Fragmented Cities: The Unequal Burden of Labor Market Frictions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-08)Using high-resolution administrative, census, and satellite data, this paper shows that South African cities are characterized by spatial mismatches between where people live and where jobs are located, relative to 20 global peers. Areas within 5 kilometers of commercial centers have 9,300 fewer residents per square kilometer than expected, which is 60 percent below the global median. Poor, dense neighborhoods are most affected. In Johannesburg, a 10-percentile increase in distance from the nearest business hub corresponds to a 3.7-percentile drop in asset wealth (a proxy of household wellbeing) and 4.9-percentile drop in employment. In Cape Town, the declines are 4.0 and 3.7 percentiles, respectively. Employment is 87 percent lower in the poorest decile than the richest in Johannesburg and 61 percent lower in Cape Town. These findings suggest that South Africa’s spatial organization of people and economic activity constrains agglomeration and reinforces inequality. This methodology provides a scalable and standardized data-driven framework to analyze spatial accessibility and agglomeration frictions in complex, data-constrained urban systems.Publication Investment in Emerging and Developing Economies(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)The world faces a pressing challenge to meet key development objectives amid slowing growth and rising macroeconomic and geopolitical risks. With the number of job seekers rising rapidly, infrastructure shortfalls continuing to be large, and climate costs mounting, the case for a significant investment push has never been stronger. Yet the capacity to respond in many emerging markets and developing economies has eroded. Since the global financial crisis, investment growth has slowed to about half its pace in the 2000s, with both public and private investment weakening. Foreign direct investment inflows—a critical source of capital, technology, and managerial know-how—have also fallen sharply and become increasingly concentrated, leaving low-income countries with only a marginal share. The risks of further retrenchment are significant, as trade tensions, policy uncertainty, and elevated debt levels continue to weigh on investment. Reigniting momentum will require ambitious domestic reforms to strengthen institutions, rebuild macro-fiscal stability, and deepen trade and investment integration—the foundations of a supportive business climate. At the same time, international cooperation is indispensable. A renewed commitment to a predictable system of cross-border trade and investment flows, combined with scaled-up financial support and sustained technical assistance, is essential to help emerging markets and developing economies—especially low-income countries and economies in fragile and conflict situations—bridge financing gaps and implement the domestic reforms needed to restore investment as an engine of growth, jobs, and development.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Effects of the Business Cycle on Social Indicators in Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-04-04)After mediocre growth in 2018 of 0.7 percent. LAC is expected to perform only marginally better in 2019 (growth of 0.9 percent) followed by a much more solid growth of 2.1 percent in 2020. LAC will face both internal and external challenges during 2019. On the domestic front. the recession in Argentina; a slower than expected recovery in Brazil from the 2014-2015 recession, anemic growth in Mexico. and the continued deterioration of Venezuela. present the biggest challenges. On the external front. the sharp drop in net capital inflows to the region since early 2018 and the monetary policy normalization in the United States stand among the greatest perils. Furthermore, the recent increase in poverty in Brazil because of the recession points to the large effects that the business cycle may have on poverty. The core of this report argues that social indicators that are very sensitive to the business cycle may yield a highly misleading picture of permanent social gains in the region.Publication Fiscal Multipliers in Recessions and Expansions : Does It Matter Whether Government Spending Is Increasing or Decreasing?(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-07)Using non-linear methods, this paper finds that existing estimates of government spending multipliers in expansion and recession may yield biased results by ignoring whether government spending is increasing or decreasing. For industrial countries, the problem originates in the fact that, contrary to one's priors, it is not always the case that government spending is going up in recessions (i.e., acting countercyclically). In almost as many cases, government spending is actually going down (i.e., acting procyclically). Since the economy does not respond symmetrically to government spending increases or decreases, the "true" long-run multiplier for bad times (and government spending going up) turns out to be 2.3 compared to 1.3 if we just distinguish between recession and expansion. In the case of developing countries, the bias results from the fact that the multiplier for recessions and government spending going down (the "when-it-rains-it-pours" phenomenon) is larger than when government spending is going up.Publication Fooled by the Cycle(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-06)This paper studies the time series behavior of a set of widely-used social indicators and uncovers two important stylized facts. First, not all social indicators are created equal in terms of the importance of cyclical fluctuations. While some social indicators such as the unemployment rate and monetary poverty show large cyclical fluctuations, other social measures such as the Human Development Index are, by construction, dominated by long-run trends. Second, interestingly, yet not surprisingly, a large part of the cyclical fluctuations in social indicators can be explained by cyclical changes in income (proxied by real GDP per capita). For this reason, countries with large cyclical income volatility exhibit, in turn, large cyclical changes in some of these social indicators (particularly in those indicators that are more prone to cyclical fluctuations). Since cyclical income volatility is much larger in the developing world, these two critical stylized facts raise fundamental issues regarding the duration of improvements in social indicators (like the ones observed in many developing countries during the last commodity super-cycle). After a detailed conceptual and methodological discussion of these issues, and relying on a global sample of industrial and developing countries, this paper digs deeper into the importance of cyclical versus permanent components by extending the seminal contribution of Datt and Ravallion (1992). In particular, it shows that more than 40 percent of the fall in monetary poverty observed in Latin America and the Caribbean during the so-called Golden Decade can be attributed to cyclical changes in income. While in principle universal, these concerns are particularly relevant in the developing world where, compared to developed countries, output volatility is larger and driven, to a large extent, by external factors (such as commodity prices).Publication Public Spending Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-07)In low- and middle-income economies, public spending policies diverge significantly from those of industrialized nations due to structural differences. Low- and middle-income economies often make long-term commitments based on short-term economic conditions, leading to mismatches between spending maturity and economic cycles. These mismatches can exacerbate fiscal imbalances and hinder economic growth by forcing compositional changes in public spending. "Public Spending Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: When Cyclicality Meets Rigidities" describes significant cyclical behavior variations in low- and middle-income markets. Contrary to Keynesian principles, public spending in these economies tends to be procyclical during economic booms, driven by increased borrowing and political pressures to address social deficits, but policy makers are unable or unwilling to retrench during economic busts. This approach not only amplifies macroeconomic volatility but also plants the seeds for fiscal distress, which is typically addressed by diminishing the quantity and quality of public investment—with serious consequences for long-term growth. Labor market informality further complicates matters, rendering automatic stabilizers like unemployment insurance impractical. Instead, governments rely on public employment and social transfer programs, which are downwardly rigid and can contribute to the expansion of government size over time. Addressing these anomalies requires policy interventions beyond traditional recommendations. Implementing fiscal rules to restrain overspending during economic upturns, enhancing the efficiency of public goods provision, and establishing mechanisms to adjust social programs during economic fluctuations are suggested approaches. In addition, measures to protect public investment and mitigate biases against pension benefits could aid in fostering long-term economic sustainability and welfare improvement. Public Spending Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean will be of interest to policy makers, researchers, and anyone with an interest in developing mechanisms for helping low- and middle-income economies weather economic storms.Publication Policy Implications of Non-linear Effects of Tax Changes on Output(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-01)An earlier paper titled "Non-linear effects of tax changes on output: The role of the initial level of taxation," estimated tax multipliers using (i) a novel dataset on value-added taxes for 51 countries (21 industrial and 30 developing) for the period 1970-2014, and (ii) the so-called narrative approach developed by Romer and Romer (2010) to properly identify exogenous tax changes. The main finding is that, in line with existing theoretical distortionary and disincentive-based arguments, the effect of tax changes on output is highly non-linear. The tax multiplier is essentially zero under relatively low/moderate initial tax rate levels and more negative as the initial tax rate and the size of the change in the tax rate increase. This companion paper first shows that these findings have important policy implications, given that the initial level of taxes varies greatly across countries and thus so will the potential output effect of changing tax rates. The paper then turns to some specific policy applications. It focuses on the relevance of the arguments for revenue mobilization in countries with low levels of provision of public goods and social and infrastructure gaps, as well as in commodity-dependent countries. The paper then considers some practical implications for the standard debt sustainability analysis. Lastly, it evaluates the implications of the findings for the Laffer curve.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Using Immunization Coverage Rates for Monitoring Health Sector Performance : Measurement and Interpretation Issues(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2000-08)Immunization against childhood diseases such as diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio and measles is one of the most important means of preventing childhood morbidity and mortality. Despite the low cost of basic childhood immunizations, nearly 3 million children still die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases. Achieving and maintaining high levels of immunization coverage must therefore be a priority for all health systems. In order to monitor progress in achieving this objective, immunization coverage data can serve as an indicator of a health system's capacity to deliver essential services to the most vulnerable members of a population. This note discusses the use of trends in immunization coverage data, and argues that immunization is a health output with a strong impact on child morbidity, child mortality and permanent disability. This note discusses measurement and interpretation issues for coverage data collected through surveys and administrative records.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication The Container Port Performance Index 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-18)The Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) measures the time container ships spend in port, making it an important point of reference for stakeholders in the global economy. These stakeholders include port authorities and operators, national governments, supranational organizations, development agencies, and other public and private players in trade and logistics. The index highlights where vessel time in container ports could be improved. Streamlining these processes would benefit all parties involved, including shipping lines, national governments, and consumers. This fourth edition of the CPPI relies on data from 405 container ports with at least 24 container ship port calls in the calendar year 2023. As in earlier editions of the CPPI, the ranking employs two different methodological approaches: an administrative (technical) approach and a statistical approach (using matrix factorization). Combining these two approaches ensures that the overall ranking of container ports reflects actual port performance as closely as possible while also being statistically robust. The CPPI methodology assesses the sequential steps of a container ship port call. ‘Total port hours’ refers to the total time elapsed from the moment a ship arrives at the port until the vessel leaves the berth after completing its cargo operations. The CPPI uses time as an indicator because time is very important to shipping lines, ports, and the entire logistics chain. However, time, as captured by the CPPI, is not the only way to measure port efficiency, so it does not tell the entire story of a port’s performance. Factors that can influence the time vessels spend in ports can be location-specific and under the port’s control (endogenous) or external and beyond the control of the port (exogenous). The CPPI measures time spent in container ports, strictly based on quantitative data only, which do not reveal the underlying factors or root causes of extended port times. A detailed port-specific diagnostic would be required to assess the contribution of underlying factors to the time a vessel spends in port. A very low ranking or a significant change in ranking may warrant special attention, for which the World Bank generally recommends a detailed diagnostic.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-10)The global economy is facing another substantial headwind, emanating largely from an increase in trade tensions and heightened global policy uncertainty. For emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the ability to boost job creation and reduce extreme poverty has declined. Key downside risks include a further escalation of trade barriers and continued policy uncertainty. These challenges are exacerbated by subdued foreign direct investment into EMDEs. Global cooperation is needed to restore a more stable international trade environment and scale up support for vulnerable countries grappling with conflict, debt burdens, and climate change. Domestic policy action is also critical to contain inflation risks and strengthen fiscal resilience. To accelerate job creation and long-term growth, structural reforms must focus on raising institutional quality, attracting private investment, and strengthening human capital and labor markets. Countries in fragile and conflict situations face daunting development challenges that will require tailored domestic policy reforms and well-coordinated multilateral support.