IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v72y2015icp277-295.html

Stopped in the Name of the Law: Administrative Burden and its Implications for Cash Transfer Program Effectiveness

Author

Listed:
  • Heinrich, Carolyn J.
  • Brill, Robert

Abstract

Cash transfer programs have achieved wide-ranging success in reducing poverty, yet there is little empirical research on how program rules and administrative capacity might limit program effectiveness. We examine administrative burden and quantify its implications for grant access and impacts in the South African Child Support Grant (CSG) program, as the age of eligibility and application requirements changed over time. We find that approximately 60% of the sampled children experienced an interruption or disconnection in cash transfer receipt, and that both timing and “dosage” loss are associated with adolescent engagement in risky behaviors, and for females, lower educational attainment.

Suggested Citation

  • Heinrich, Carolyn J. & Brill, Robert, 2015. "Stopped in the Name of the Law: Administrative Burden and its Implications for Cash Transfer Program Effectiveness," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 277-295.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:72:y:2015:i:c:p:277-295
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.03.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X15000741
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.03.015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shore-Sheppard Lara D., 2008. "Stemming the Tide? The Effect of Expanding Medicaid Eligibility On Health Insurance Coverage," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 1-35, July.
    2. Jef L. Leroy & Marie Ruel & Ellen Verhofstadt, 2009. "The impact of conditional cash transfer programmes on child nutrition: a review of evidence using a programme theory framework," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 103-129, June.
    3. Kluve, Jochen & Schneider, Hilmar & Uhlendorff, Arne & Zhao, Zhong, 2007. "Evaluating Continuous Training Programs Using the Generalized Propensity Score," IZA Discussion Papers 3255, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Joakim Palme & Walter Korpi, 1998. "The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries," LIS Working papers 174, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Laura B. Rawlings, 2005. "Evaluating the Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 20(1), pages 29-55.
    6. Álvarez, Carola & Devoto, Florencia & Winters, Paul, 2008. "Why do Beneficiaries Leave the Safety Net in Mexico? A Study of the Effects of Conditionality on Dropouts," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 641-658, April.
    7. Alain de Janvry & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2006. "Making Conditional Cash Transfer Programs More Efficient: Designing for Maximum Effect of the Conditionality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 20(1), pages 1-29.
    8. Virginia Hernanz & Franck Malherbet & Michele Pellizzari, 2004. "Take-Up of Welfare Benefits in OECD Countries: A Review of the Evidence," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 17, OECD Publishing.
    9. Jochen Kluve & Hilmar Schneider & Arne Uhlendorff & Zhong Zhao, 2012. "Evaluating continuous training programmes by using the generalized propensity score," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 175(2), pages 587-617, April.
    10. repec:wbk:wbpubs:2597 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Anne Case & Victoria Hosegood & Frances Lund, 2005. "The reach and impact of Child Support Grants: evidence from KwaZulu-Natal," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 467-482.
    12. Sudhanshu Handa & Carolyn Huang & Nicola Hypher & Clarissa Teixeira & Fabio V. Soares & Benjamin Davis, 2012. "Targeting effectiveness of social cash transfer programmes in three African countries," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 78-108, March.
    13. Cohen, John M. & Grindle, Merilee S. & Walker, S. Tjip, 1985. "Foreign aid and conditions precedent: Political and bureaucratic dimensions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(12), pages 1211-1230, 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. Bell, Elizabeth & Kappes, Heather Barry & Williams, Miles, 2023. "How reducing documentation burdens impacts equity in access to small business COVID-19 relief funding," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120047, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Lawrence J. Kotlikoff & Guillermo Lagarda & Gabriel Marin, 2025. "A personalized VAT with capital transfers: a reform to protect low-income households in Mexico," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 32(5), pages 1573-1633, October.
    3. Groves, Allison K. & Gebrekristos, Luwam T. & Stoner, Marie C.D. & Gómez-Olivé, F Xavier & Kahn, Kathleen & Pettifor, Audrey E., 2024. "Assessing the durability of a cash transfer on physical intimate partner violence and sexual relationships among adolescent girls and young women in rural South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 350(C).
    4. Heinrich, Carolyn J. & Knowles, Matthew T., 2020. "A fine predicament: Conditioning, compliance and consequences in a labeled cash transfer program," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Dylan Kneale & Abel Kjaersgaard & Malica de Melo & Joelma Joaquim Picardo & Sally Griffin & Rebecca S French & Helen E D Burchett, 2023. "Can cash transfer interventions increase contraceptive use and reduce adolescent birth and pregnancy in low and middle income countries? A systematic review and meta-analysis," PLOS Global Public Health, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(11), pages 1-22, November.
    6. Porisky, Alesha & Mohamed, Tahira Shariff & Muthui, Patrick Mutinda, 2023. "Kenya’s ‘Universal’ social pension: The politics of registration in Marsabit County," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    7. Leight, Jessica & Hirvonen, Kalle & Zafar, Sarim, 2024. "The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis," IFPRI discussion papers 2262, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. repec:osf:osfxxx:26xdj_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:osf:osfxxx:dnc2r_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ahmed El Assal, 2026. "Citizens’ Claims‐Making and Navigating the Politics of Accountability in Social Cash Transfers in Uganda," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 14.
    11. Shreya Biswas & Upasak Das, 2021. "Whats the worth of a promise? Evaluating the indirect effects of a program to reduce early marriage in India," Papers 2104.12215, arXiv.org.
    12. Halling, Aske & Bækgaard, Martin, 2022. "Administrative Burden in Citizen-State Interactions: A Systematic Literature Review," OSF Preprints 26xdj, Center for Open Science.
    13. Adam Salifu & Kennedy Makafui Kufoalor, 2024. "Are cash transfer programmes effective at targeting people experiencing poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa?," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 1-25, February.
    14. Laure‐lise Robben & Rik Peeters & Arjan Widlak, 2024. "Burdens on the gateway to the state: Administrative burdens in the registration of people experiencing homelessness in Belgium and the Netherlands," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(3), pages 780-803, June.
    15. Helen Elizabeth Denise Burchett & Dylan Kneale & Sally Griffin & Málica de Melo & Joelma Joaquim Picardo & Rebecca S. French, 2022. "Which Structural Interventions for Adolescent Contraceptive Use Have Been Evaluated in Low- and Middle-Income Countries?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-31, September.
    16. Pfutze, Tobias, 2019. "Should program graduation be better targeted? The other schooling outcomes of Mexico’s Oportunidades," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    17. Carolyn J. Heinrich & Sayil Camacho & Sarah Clark Henderson & Mónica Hernández & Ela Joshi, 2022. "Consequences of Administrative Burden for Social Safety Nets that Support the Healthy Development of Children," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 11-44, January.
    18. Shreya Biswas & Upasak Das, 2026. "What's the worth of a promise? Evaluating the long‐term effects of a programme to reduce early marriage in India," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 93(371), pages 863-886, July.
    19. Sarah Halpern‐Meekin & Lisa A. Gennetian & Jill Hoiting & Laura Stilwell & Lauren Meyer, 2024. "Monthly unconditional income supplements starting at birth: Experiences among mothers of young children with low incomes in the U.S," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(3), pages 871-898, June.

    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. Tagel Gebrehiwot & Carolina Castilla, 2018. "Do safety net transfers improve household diets and reduce undernutrition? Evidence from rural Ethiopia," Working Papers PMMA 2018-03, PEP-PMMA.
    2. Ma, Zhao & Bauchet, Jonathan & Steele, Diana & Godoy, Ricardo & Radel, Claudia & Zanotti, Laura, 2017. "Comparison of Direct Transfers for Human Capital Development and Environmental Conservation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 498-517.
    3. Jane Arnold Lincove & Adam Parker, 2016. "The influence of conditional cash transfers on eligible children and their siblings," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 352-373, August.
    4. Sylvester Amoako Agyemang & Tomáš Ratinger & Miroslava Bavorová, 2022. "The Impact of Agricultural Input Subsidy on Productivity: The Case of Ghana," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(3), pages 1460-1485, June.
    5. Martin Persson, U. & Alpízar, Francisco, 2013. "Conditional Cash Transfers and Payments for Environmental Services—A Conceptual Framework for Explaining and Judging Differences in Outcomes," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 124-137.
    6. Kelly, Elish & McGuinness, Seamus & O'Connell, Philip J., 2011. "What Can Active Labour Market Policies Do?," Papers EC1, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    7. Michela Bia & Carlos A. Flores & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes & Alessandra Mattei, 2014. "A Stata package for the application of semiparametric estimators of dose–response functions," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 14(3), pages 580-604, September.
    8. Flores, Carlos A. & Mitnik, Oscar A., 2009. "Evaluating Nonexperimental Estimators for Multiple Treatments: Evidence from Experimental Data," IZA Discussion Papers 4451, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Clausen, Jens & Heinesen, Eskil & Hummelgaard, Hans & Husted, Leif & Rosholm, Michael, 2009. "The effect of integration policies on the time until regular employment of newly arrived immigrants: Evidence from Denmark," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 409-417, August.
    10. Enrico Fabrizi & Maria Rosaria Ferrante & Silvia Pacei, 2014. "A Micro-Econometric Analysis of the Antipoverty Effect of Social Cash Transfers in Italy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(2), pages 323-348, June.
    11. Pavel Ciaian & d'Artis Kancs & Jerzy Michalek, 2011. "SPS Capitalization into Land Value : Generalized Propensity Score Evidence from the EU," LICOS Discussion Papers 29311, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    12. Kati Kuitto, 2018. "Measuring Welfare Entitlement Generosity in Transitional Welfare States: The Case of Post-communist Countries in Central and Eastern Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 203-224, February.
    13. Emiliano Magrini & Pierluigi Montalbano & Silvia Nenci, 2013. "Are the EU trade preferences really effective? A Generalized Propensity Score evaluation of the Southern Mediterranean Countries' case in agriculture and fishery," Working Papers 2/13, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.
    14. Choe, Chung & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Lee, Sang-Jun, 2011. "Do Dropouts Benefit from Training Programs? Korean Evidence Employing Methods for Continuous Treatments," IZA Discussion Papers 6064, IZA Network @ LISER.
    15. Takeshima, Hiroyuki, 2015. "Identifying the effects of market imperfections for a scale biased agricultural technology: Tractors in Nigeria," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211937, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Bhorat, Haroon & Köhler, Timothy, 2025. "The labour market effects of cash transfers to the unemployed: Evidence from South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    17. Heyer, Gerd & Koch, Susanne & Stephan, Gesine & Wolff, Joachim, 2012. "Evaluation der aktiven Arbeitsmarktpolitik: Ein Sachstandsbericht für die Instrumentenreform 2011 (Evaluation of active labor market programs : a summary of recent results for the German program reform 2011)," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 45(1), pages 41-62.
    18. Guadalupe Serrano-Domingo & Francisco Requena-Silvente, 2013. "Examining the non-linear relationship between migration and trade," Working Papers 1310, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    19. Chen‐Nan Liao & Ying‐Ju Chen, 2021. "Design of Long‐Term Conditional Cash Transfer Program to Encourage Healthy Habits," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(11), pages 3987-4003, November.
    20. Stephan, Gesine & Pahnke, André, 2008. "The Relative Effectiveness of Selected Active Labour Market Programmes and the Common Support Problem," IZA Discussion Papers 3767, IZA Network @ LISER.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wdevel:v:72:y:2015:i:c:p:277-295. 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/worlddev .

    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.