IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/deveco/v90y2009i2p276-284.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Efficient delivery of subsidies to the poor: Improving the design of a cash transfer program in Ecuador

Author

Listed:
  • Carrillo, Paul E.
  • Ponce Jarrín, Juan

Abstract

Many governments provide monetary transfers to low-income families. The mechanism through which these subsidies are distributed may contain several inefficiencies that diminish the net-value obtained by the recipients. In this paper, we build and estimate a behavioral dynamic model that allows us to evaluate the efficiency of current and alternative distribution mechanisms. The proposed model is simple and resembles the individual's decision to collect the transfer. To estimate it, we use data from a cash transfer program in Ecuador where recipients incur high transaction costs each time they collect their benefits. Despite its simplicity, our model is able to replicate the observed data remarkably well. We use it to simulate alternative payment mechanisms and show that an adequate design of the delivery of payments can substantially increase the value of cash transfer programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Carrillo, Paul E. & Ponce Jarrín, Juan, 2009. "Efficient delivery of subsidies to the poor: Improving the design of a cash transfer program in Ecuador," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 276-284, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:90:y:2009:i:2:p:276-284
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-3878(08)00100-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Berkovec, James & Stern, Steven, 1991. "Job Exit Behavior of Older Men," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 189-210, January.
    2. Keane, Michael P & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1994. "The Solution and Estimation of Discrete Choice Dynamic Programming Models by Simulation and Interpolation: Monte Carlo Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(4), pages 648-672, November.
    3. Christina Paxson & Norbert Schady, 2007. "Does Money Matter? The Effects of Cash Transfers on Child Health and Development in Rural Ecuador," Working Papers 145, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    4. Kenneth I. Wolpin & Petra E. Todd, 2006. "Assessing the Impact of a School Subsidy Program in Mexico: Using a Social Experiment to Validate a Dynamic Behavioral Model of Child Schooling and Fertility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1384-1417, December.
    5. Keane, Michael P & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1997. "The Career Decisions of Young Men," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(3), pages 473-522, June.
    6. Mauricio Leon & Stephen Younger, 2007. "Transfer payments, mothers' income and child health in ecuador," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(6), pages 1126-1143.
    7. Paul Schultz, T., 2004. "School subsidies for the poor: evaluating the Mexican Progresa poverty program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 199-250, June.
    8. Behrman, Jere R & Sengupta, Piyali & Todd, Petra, 2005. "Progressing through PROGRESA: An Impact Assessment of a School Subsidy Experiment in Rural Mexico," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(1), pages 237-275, October.
    9. Schady, Norbert & Araujo, Maria Caridad, 2006. "Cash transfers, conditions, school enrollment, and child work : evidence from a randomized experiment in Ecuador," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3930, The World Bank.
    10. Rawlings, Laura B. & Rubio, Gloria M., 2003. "Evaluating the impact of conditional cash transfer programs : lessons from Latin America," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3119, The World Bank.
    11. Keane, Michael P & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 2001. "The Effect of Parental Transfers and Borrowing Constraints on Educational Attainment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1051-1103, November.
    12. FranÁois Bourguignon & Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Phillippe G. Leite, 2003. "Conditional Cash Transfers, Schooling, and Child Labor: Micro-Simulating Brazil's Bolsa Escola Program," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 229-254, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Samuel Bazzi & Sudarno Sumarto & Asep Suryahadi, "undated". "Intinya Penentuan Waktu: Respons Belanja dan Suplai Kerja Rumah Tangga terhadap Bantuan Langsung Tunai," Working Papers 3610, Publications Department.
    2. Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa & Quaranta, Roberto, 2022. "How to Best Fight Poverty: The Uneven Ex-post Effects of Conditional and Unconditional Cash Transfers on Labor Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 15658, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Bargain, Olivier & Jara, H. Xavier & Rivera, David, 2024. "Tax disincentives to formal employment in Latin America," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125368, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Paredes, Tatiana, 2017. "The long-term effects of cash transfers on education and labor market outcomes," MPRA Paper 88809, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Sep 2018.
    5. Ariel Fiszbein & Norbert Schady & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Margaret Grosh & Niall Keleher & Pedro Olinto & Emmanuel Skoufias, 2009. "Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2597.
    6. Casco José L., 2022. "Intra-household Resource Shares under Poverty Transfers: Evidence from Ecuador," Working Papers 2022-03, Banco de México.
    7. Samuel Bazzi & Sudarno Sumarto & Asep Suryahadi, "undated". "It’s All in the Timing: Household Expenditure and Labor Supply Responses to Unconditional Cash Transfers," Working Papers 280, Publications Department.
    8. Daniel Coq-Huelva & Angie Higuchi & Rafaela Alfalla-Luque & Ricardo Burgos-Morán & Ruth Arias-Gutiérrez, 2017. "Co-Evolution and Bio-Social Construction: The Kichwa Agroforestry Systems ( Chakras ) in the Ecuadorian Amazonia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-19, October.
    9. Rinehart, Chloe S. & McGuire, James W., 2017. "Obstacles to Takeup: Ecuador's Conditional Cash Transfer Program, The Bono de Desarrollo Humano," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 165-177.
    10. Paredes-Torres, Tatiana, 2017. "The impact of exposure to cash transfers on education and labor market outcomes," MPRA Paper 79008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. José L. Casco, 2024. "Intra-household resource shares under poverty transfers: evidence from Ecuador," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1243-1274, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Del Rey, Elena & Estevan, Fernanda, 2013. "Conditional cash transfers and education quality in the presence of credit constraints," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 76-84.
    2. Aguirregabiria, Victor & Mira, Pedro, 2010. "Dynamic discrete choice structural models: A survey," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 156(1), pages 38-67, May.
    3. Estevan, Fernanda, 2013. "The impact of conditional cash transfers on public education expenditures: A political economy approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 268-284.
    4. Sebastian Galiani & Juan Pantano, 2021. "Structural Models: Inception and Frontier," NBER Working Papers 28698, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ponce, Juan & Bedi, Arjun S., 2010. "The impact of a cash transfer program on cognitive achievement: The Bono de Desarrollo Humano of Ecuador," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 116-125, February.
    6. Michael P. Keane, 2015. "Effects Of Permanent And Transitory Tax Changes In A Life‐Cycle Labor Supply Model With Human Capital," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(2), pages 485-503, May.
    7. Nabernegg, Markus, 2012. "El impacto del BDH en el gasto de bienes no deseados: Un análisis de regresión discontinua [The impact of the Bono de Desarrollo Humano in the expenditure for undesirable goods: A regression discon," MPRA Paper 41295, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kitaura, Koji & Miyazawa, Kazutoshi, 2021. "Inequality and conditionality in cash transfers: Demographic transition and economic development," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 276-287.
    9. Paul Sullivan, 2010. "A Dynamic Analysis Of Educational Attainment, Occupational Choices, And Job Search," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(1), pages 289-317, February.
    10. Robert M. Sauer, 2015. "Does It Pay For Women To Volunteer?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(2), pages 537-564, May.
    11. Elena Mattana & Juanna Joensen, 2014. "Student Aid, Academic Achievement, and Labor Market Behavior: Grants or Loans?," 2014 Meeting Papers 707, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Michael P. Keane & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 2009. "Empirical Applications of Discrete Choice Dynamic Programming Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 1-22, January.
    13. Jack Britton & Ben Waltmann, 2021. "Revisiting the solution of dynamic discrete choice models: time to bring back Keane and Wolpin (1994)?," IFS Working Papers W21/13, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    14. van der Klaauw, Wilbert & Wolpin, Kenneth I., 2008. "Social security and the retirement and savings behavior of low-income households," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 21-42, July.
    15. Sarah Baird & Craig McIntosh & Berk Özler, 2011. "Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1709-1753.
    16. Suqin Ge, 2011. "Women's College Decisions: How Much Does Marriage Matter?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(4), pages 773-818.
    17. Amanda Glassman & Jessica Todd, 2007. "Performance-Based Incentives for Health: Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean," Working Papers 120, Center for Global Development.
    18. Ana C. Dammert, 2009. "Heterogeneous Impacts of Conditional Cash Transfers: Evidence from Nicaragua," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(1), pages 53-83, October.
    19. Michael P. Keane, 2015. "Effects Of Permanent And Transitory Tax Changes In A Life‐Cycle Labor Supply Model With Human Capital," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56, pages 485-503, May.
    20. Schady, Norbert & Araujo, Maria Caridad, 2006. "Cash transfers, conditions, school enrollment, and child work : evidence from a randomized experiment in Ecuador," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3930, The World Bank.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:90:y:2009:i:2:p:276-284. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/devec .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.