Publication: Intervention Size and Persistence
Date
2021-09
ISSN
Published
2021-09
Author(s)
Kondylis, Florence
Loeser, John
Abstract
Do larger interventions improve longer
run outcomes more cost effectively? And should poverty traps
motivate increasing intervention size? This paper considers
two approaches to increasing intervention size in the
context of temporary unconditional cash transfers — larger
transfers (intensity), and adding complementary graduation
program interventions (scope). It does so leveraging 38
experimental estimates of dynamic consumption impacts from
14 developing countries. First, increasing intensity
decreases cost effectiveness and does not affect persistence
of impacts. This result can be explained by poverty traps or
decreasing marginal return on investment in a standard
buffer stock model. Second, increasing scope increases
impacts and persistence, but reduces cost effectiveness at
commonly evaluated time horizons and increases
heterogeneity. In summary, larger interventions need not
have more persistent impacts, and when they do, this may
come at the expense of cost effectiveness, and poverty traps
are neither necessary nor sufficient for these results.
Citation
“Kondylis, Florence; Loeser, John. 2021. Intervention Size and Persistence. Policy Research Working Paper, No. 9769. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36242 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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