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Does the impact of cash transfers differ across poverty measures? Evidence from Pakistan

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Abstract

Cash transfers have been increasingly used in developing countries as key elements of social protection and poverty reduction strategies. Pakistan is no exception. In 2008, Pakistan introduced the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) as an unconditional cash transfer targeted at the poorest of the poor. In this paper, we use five poverty measures, calculated biennially from 2008 to 2014 for 100 districts in Pakistan to assess the effectiveness of the BISP in alleviating poverty. We also examine whether the impact of the cash transfer programs on poverty is sensitive to the choice of poverty measure. Our results show that BISP is associated with poverty reduction using either the conventional money-metric poverty measures or multidimensional poverty measures, however the impact is much larger for the conventional poverty measures, which are distributionally insensitive. The implication is that public policy analysts should be cautious in the conclusions they draw from poverty estimate when evaluating welfare programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Zaira Najam & Susan Olivia, 2021. "Does the impact of cash transfers differ across poverty measures? Evidence from Pakistan," Working Papers in Economics 21/09, University of Waikato.
    • Handle: RePEc:wai:econwp:21/09
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    poverty; cash transfers; multidimensional; social protection; Pakistan;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

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