Publication: Cash Transfer Size: How Much Is Enough?
Loading...
Date
2024-06-14
ISSN
Published
2024-06-14
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
As a part of “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series”, this note summarizes the impacts of cash transfers on a range of outcomes, depending on the size (adequacy, benefit level or amount) of transfer values. The review is largely based on the impact evaluations published in the past decade, finding that high(er)-value cash transfers typically produce greater impacts. However, low(er)-value transfers can also achieve measurable impacts, particularly when accompanying by behavior change communication. Provided in lumpsum, high-value transfers may allow beneficiary households to invest or save more compared to smaller transfers provided over time in a frequent manner. While cash transfers show positive impacts in reducing gender related violence, high-value transfers can have the potential to increase physical abuse in certain demographic tiers more than less-conspicuous low-value transfers. Although the size is a key parameter, it is important to consider the confluence with other factors including target population, duration, frequency, timing, and payment modalities when designing and implementing a program.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank; Innovations for Poverty Action. 2024. Cash Transfer Size: How Much Is Enough?. Social Protection and Jobs Policy and Technical Note; No.31; Evidence at Your Fingertips Series. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41713 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Cash Transfer Timing(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14)As a part of “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series”, this note summarizes the impacts of cash transfers based on the duration and frequency of transfers. The review is largely based on the impact evaluations published in the past decade, finding that the impact of cash transfers varies based on duration, depending on whether they are distributed over a short (24 months or less) or long (more than 24 months) period. Cash transfers distributed over a long period provide predictability that is associated with greater impact, particularly with transfers distributed to improve children’s health, nutrition and education, and employment and labor. A longer duration of transfers allows for households to plan, which in turn allows households to engage in riskier yet more-profitable income-generating activities, when available. While the evidence suggests that frequency of cash disbursements alone does not significantly affect outcomes, it is important to remember that the confluence of size, frequency, and duration of cash transfers may produce different results than any single factor in isolation.Publication Cash or In-Kind Transfers(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14)As a part of “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series”, this note summarizes how the transfer modality can affect outcomes based on a literature review of impact evaluations published in the past decade. In general, cash transfers appear to be more effective than in-kind transfers or vouchers at improving a range of outcomes, including decreasing monetary poverty, improving health and nutrition, and increasing food security, across diverse country contexts, program objectives, and design features. However, identifying a superior modality can be challenging due to the heterogeneity in context, program design, and objectives of the studies reviewed, despite evidence generally favoring the effectiveness of cash transfers and acknowledging the enhanced effectiveness of a combination of modalities, referred to as cash plus, in specific cases. For example, in-kind transfers may be preferred when the markets are not functioning, have limited stock, or when programs are designed to influence behaviors, such as consumption patterns, or provide basic needs in the face of crises.Publication Cash Transfer Payment Mechanisms(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14)As a part of “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series”, this note aims to summarize the impacts of cash transfers based on payment mechanisms which have diversified greatly in recent years. The review is largely based on the impact evaluation published in the past decade, finding that the payment mechanism—whether physical (in-person) or digital— does not have notably different impacts on how recipients use cash or on key outcome indicators related to consumption, gender, and financial inclusion. That said, digital transfers may be more cost-effective for both implementers and beneficiary households than physical cash payments, expand customer coverage for participating mobile network operators, and provide avenues to increase financial inclusion for the poor. While digital payments can offer opportunities, it is essential to invest in appropriate infrastructure and mechanisms to reach digitally excluded populations.Publication Evidence at your Fingertips Series: Operational and Design Choices of Social Assistance Programs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14)To help policy makers make practical programmatic design choices, the “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series” explains how the design of cash transfer programs can affect outcomes. The review is largely based on impact evaluations published in the past decade. The series is launched with an initial set of five thematic briefs on benefit size, timing (frequency and duration), transfer modality (cash versus in-kind), payment mechanism (physical versus digital), and gender. While the impacts of cash transfers can vary depending on the context, this overview brief aims to present key take aways on how design features can impact cash transfer outcomes. Evidence at Your Fingertips Series: • Evidence Briefs on Cash Transfers: Overview and Ten Key Messages • Cash Transfer Size: How Much Is Enough? • Cash Transfer Timing: How Transfer Duration and Frequency Contribute to Outcomes? • Cash Transfer Payment Mechanisms: Do Outcomes Vary According to Payment Mechanism? • Cash or In-Kind Transfers: Do Outcomes Vary According to Transfer Modality? • Can Safety Nets Reduce Gender-Based Violence? How?Publication Are There Diminishing Returns to Transfer Size in Conditional Cash Transfers?(2009-07-01)There is increasing evidence that conditional cash transfer programs can have large impacts on school enrollment, including in very poor countries. However, little is known about which features of program design -- including the amount of the cash that is transferred, how frequently conditions are monitored, whether non-complying households are penalized, and the identity or gender of the cash recipients -- account for the observed outcomes. This paper analyzes the impact of one feature of program design -- namely, the magnitude of the transfer. The analysis uses data from a program in Cambodia that deliberately altered the transfer amounts received by otherwise comparable households. The findings show clear evidence of diminishing marginal returns to transfer size despite the fact that even the larger transfers represented on average only 3 percent of the consumption of the median recipient households. If applicable to other settings, these results have important implications for other programs that transfer cash with the explicit aim of increasing school enrollment levels in developing countries.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.Publication Finance and Prosperity 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-29)While financial sector risks in the larger and higher per capita countries are moderate, half of lower-income countries face significant risks over the next 12 months. Nearly 70 percent of countries facing high financial sector risks are currently not adequately prepared to handle financial stress. The report also identifies a particular risk facing financial sectors in several countries: a large and growing exposure to sovereign debt. This exposure surged to its highest level in the past decade. Finally, the report looks at how countries can enable more climate finance through the banking sector without compromising on the important goals of financial sector stability and inclusion for underserved people.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 Commodity Markets Outlook, October 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-29)Commodity prices are expected to decrease by 5 percent in 2025 and 2 percent in 2026. The projected declines are led by oil prices but tempered by price increases for natural gas and a stable outlook for metals and agricultural raw materials. The possibility of escalating conflict in the Middle East represents a substantial near-term upside risk to energy prices, with potential knock-on consequences for other commodities. However, over the forecast horizon, longer-term dynamics—including decelerating global oil demand, diversifying oil production, and ample oil supply capacity—suggest sizable downside risks to oil prices, especially if OPEC+ unwinds its latest production cuts. There are also dual risks to industrial commodity demand stemming from economic activity. On the one hand, concerted stimulus in China and above-trend growth in the United States could push commodity prices higher. On the other, weaker-than-anticipated global industrial activity could dampen them. Following several overlapping global shocks in the early 2020s, which drove parallel swings in commodity prices, commodity markets appear to be departing from a period of tight synchronization. A Special Focus analyzes commodity price synchronization over time and considers the relative importance across commodity cycles of a wide range of demand and supply shocks, including global demand shocks and shocks specific to different commodity markets. It concludes that, while supply shocks were the dominant commodity price driver in the early 2000s and around the global financial crisis, post-pandemic price movements have been more substantially shaped by commodity-specific shocks, such as those related to conflicts.Publication Supporting Youth at Risk(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)The World Bank has produced this policy Toolkit in response to a growing demand from our government clients and partners for advice on how to create and implement effective policies for at-risk youth. The author has highlighted 22 policies (six core policies, nine promising policies, and seven general policies) that have been effective in addressing the following five key risk areas for young people around the world: (i) youth unemployment, underemployment, and lack of formal sector employment; (ii) early school leaving; (iii) risky sexual behavior leading to early childbearing and HIV/AIDS; (iv) crime and violence; and (v) substance abuse. The objective of this Toolkit is to serve as a practical guide for policy makers in middle-income countries as well as professionals working within the area of youth development on how to develop and implement an effective policy portfolio to foster healthy and positive youth development.