Private, inter-household income transfers in the Philippines are large and widespread. They are responsive to the economic status of households. Transfers are targeted to households headed by the non-employed and those without access to retirement pensions. Among the very poorest households, decreases in their pre-transfer income appear to prompt large increases in private transfers suggesting that transfers are in part motivated by altruism. The responsiveness of transfers to household income implies that attempts to improve the economic status of poor households could be thwarted by private responses. If a poor household can tap increased government aid, its private benefactors would cut back on their on transfers, For example, we estimate that if unemployment insurance were instituted in the Philippines, the policy would prompt such large reductions in private transfers that the jobless households would only be slightly better off. We also find that social security prompts similar, though smaller, reductions in private transfers, and those government efforts to alleviate poverty would fall short of the mark because of private-transfer responses. In spite of the private-transfer response, however, public transfers still confer benefits are smaller than those implied my analyses that ignore private-transfer behavior.
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Length: 23 pages Date of creation: Dec 1993 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:236
Contact details of provider: Postal: Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill MA 02467 USA Phone: 617-552-3670 Fax: +1-617-552-2308 Email: Web page: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F Baum).
Find related papers by JEL classification: O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)