Publication:
Do Workfare Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Experimental Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (2.59 MB)
826 downloads
Date
2021-04
ISSN
Published
2021-04
Author(s)
Bertrand, Marianne
Crepon, Bruno
Marguerie, Alicia
Abstract
Workfare programs are one of the most popular social protection and employment policy instruments in the developing world. They evoke the promise of efficient targeting, as well as immediate and lasting impacts on participants’ employment, earnings, skills and behaviors. This paper evaluates contemporaneous and post-program impacts of a public works intervention in Côte d’Ivoire. The program was randomized among urban youths who self-selected to participate and provided seven months of employment at the formal minimum wage. Randomized subsets of beneficiaries also received complementary training on basic entrepreneurship or job search skills. During the program, results show limited impacts on the likelihood of employment, but a shift toward wage jobs, higher earnings and savings, as well as changes in work habits and behaviors. Fifteen months after the program ended, savings stock remain higher, but there are no lasting impacts on employment or behaviors, and only limited impacts on earnings. Machine learning techniques are applied to assess whether program targeting can improve. Significant heterogeneity in impacts on earnings is found during the program but not post-program. Departing from self-targeting improves performance: a range of practical targeting mechanisms achieve impacts close to a machine learning benchmark by maximizing contemporaneous impacts without reducing post-program impacts. Impacts on earnings remain substantially below program costs even under improved targeting.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Bertrand, Marianne; Crepon, Bruno; Marguerie, Alicia; Premand, Patrick. 2021. Do Workfare Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Experimental Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9611. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35406 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Report Series
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
  • Publication
    Right to Education
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-12) Vargas, Juan F.; Rozo, Sandra V.
    About a third of the 7.7 million Venezuelans who have left their country due to political and economic turmoil have settled in neighboring Colombia. The extent to which the Colombian schooling system can absorb the massive demand for education of Venezuelan children is key for their future trajectory of human capital accumulation, as well as that of Colombian students in receiving communities. This paper estimates the effect of Venezuelan migration on educational outcomes of children living in settlement municipalities in Colombia, distinguish between the effect of the migration shock on native and migrant students. Specifically, it estimates the effect of the migration shock on school enrollment, dropout/promotion rates and standardized test scores. The identification relies on a plausibly exogenous measure of the predicted migration shock faced by each Colombian municipality every year. The findings show that the migration shock increased the enrollment of Venezuelan students in both public and private schools and in all school grades, but also generated negative spillovers related to failing promotion rates and increasing dropout. This paper documents that these negative effects are explained by the differential enrollment capacity of schools, as well as by the deterioration of key school inputs.
  • Publication
    Environmental Policy under Weak Institutions
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-11) Karayalcin, Cem; Onder, Harun
    Developing countries are facing mounting pressures to incorporate environmental concerns into their policy reform agendas. This paper finds that common environmental policies, such as levying taxes to reduce the excessive exploitation of natural assets, can be self-defeating when (i) institutions are weak and (ii) the general equilibrium effects of such policy actions are overlooked. This seemingly paradoxical result is driven by fundamental mechanisms in structural transformation frameworks, without the need for strong assumptions. It also carries a clear policy implication: environmental policies should be considered within a country’s broader development context, rather than in isolation.
  • Publication
    The Quality and Price of Africa’s Imports of Digital Goods
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-08) Bastos, Paulo; Castro, Lucio; Cruz, Marcio
    Imported digital goods are critical for productivity growth in low-income countries. Using detailed data on international trade flows and tariffs, this paper finds that African nations tend to import relatively low quality, low price digital goods. It also finds that digital goods in Africa are subject to relatively higher tariffs, along with other factors that contribute to their higher cost in the domestic market compared to other regions, especially in some low-income countries. The findings show that the African Continental Free Trade Area will do little to reduce this tariff burden, as most digital goods are sourced from higher income nonmembers. In contrast, unilateral tariff liberalization toward all countries would significantly increase the imports of digital goods in Africa.
  • Publication
    Reviewing Assessment Tools for Measuring Country Statistical Capacity
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-06) Dang, Hai-Anh H.; Pullinger,John James; Serajuddin,Umar; Stacy,Brian William
    Country statistical capacity is increasingly recognized as crucial for development, but no academic study exists that reviews the available assessment tools. This paper offers the first review study that fills this gap, paying particular attention to data and practical measurement challenges. It compares the World Bank’s recently developed Statistical Performance Indicators and Index with other widely used indexes, such as the Open Data Inventory index, the Global Data Barometer index, and other regional and self-assessment tools. The findings show that each index brings advantages in data sources, number of indicators, measurement focus, coverage of countries and time periods, and correlation with common development indexes. The Open Data Inventory index covers the most countries, the Global Data Barometer index collects data through its surveys, and the Statistical Performance Indicators and Index offer a broader framework for assessing statistical systems. The paper offers further thoughts on the potential mechanisms through which these tools can bring positive impacts on economic activities and some political economy concerns, as well as future directions for development.
  • Publication
    High Temperature and Learning Outcomes
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05) Srivastava, Bhavya; Hirfrfot, Kibrom Tafere; Behrer, Arnold Patrick
    This paper uses data from 2003–19 on 2.47 million test takers of a national high stakes university entrance exam in Ethiopia to study the impacts of temperature on learning outcomes. It finds that high temperatures during the school year leading up to the exam reduce test scores, controlling for temperatures when the exam is taken. The results suggest that the scores of female students are less impacted by higher temperatures compared to their male counterparts. Additionally, the analysis finds that the scores of students from schools located in hotter regions are less impacted by higher temperatures compared to their counterparts from cooler regions. The evidence suggests that the adverse effects of temperature are driven by impacts from within-classroom temperatures, rather than from indirect impacts on agriculture.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Associated URLs
Associated content
Citations