IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/itaxpf/v6y1999i3p411-419.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is More Targeting Consistent with Less Spending?

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Ravallion

Abstract

Economists often advise governments to target their spending better when cuts are called for. This paper asks whether that advice is consistent with a political-economy constraint that limits the welfare losses to the non-poor from spending cuts. A simple theoretical model shows that the answer is unclear on a priori grounds, and so will depend on the specifics of program design and financing. A case study for a World Bank-supported social program in Argentina illustrates how cuts can come with worse targeting performance; the allocation to the poor falls faster than that to the non-poor. Some lessons are drawn for how the poor might be better protected from cuts. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1999

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Ravallion, 1999. "Is More Targeting Consistent with Less Spending?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(3), pages 411-419, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:6:y:1999:i:3:p:411-419
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1008763803499
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1008763803499
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1008763803499?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe De Donder & Jean Hindriks, 1998. "The political economy of targeting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 177-200, April.
    2. Ravallion, Martin, 1999. "Are poorer states worse at targeting their poor?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 373-377, December.
    3. Ravallion, Martin, 2000. "Monitoring Targeting Performance When Decentralized Allocations to the Poor Are Unobserved," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(2), pages 331-345, May.
    4. Lanjouw, Peter & Ravallion, Martin, 1998. "Benefit incidence and the timing of program capture," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1956, The World Bank.
    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. Ravallion, Martin, 2002. "Are the Poor Protected from Budget Cuts? Evidence for Argentina," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 5(1), pages 1-27, May.
    2. Grégoire ROTA-GRAZIOSI & Emilie CALDEIRA, 2014. "La décentralisation dans les pays en développement : une revue de la littérature - Decentralization in developing countries: A literature review," Working Papers 201411, CERDI.
    3. Mimboe, Bernard, 2021. "Is there a right time for fiscal decentralization in a developing country: a case study of Cameroon," MPRA Paper 106220, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Bardhan, Pranab & Mookherjee, Dilip, 2005. "Decentralizing antipoverty program delivery in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 675-704, April.
    5. Ravallion,Martin, 2000. "Are the poor protected from budget cuts? theory and evidence for Argentina," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2391, The World Bank.
    6. Ana Corbacho & Mercedes Garcia‐Escribano & Gabriela Inchauste, 2007. "Argentina: Macroeconomic Crisis and Household Vulnerability," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 92-106, February.
    7. Elbers, Chris & Lanjouw, Peter & Mistiaen, Johan & Özler, Berk & Simler, Kenneth, 2003. "Are neighbors equal?," FCND briefs 147, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Chikako Yamauchi, 2010. "Community-Based Targeting and Initial Local Conditions: Evidence from Indonesia's IDT Program," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(1), pages 95-147, October.
    9. Ravallion, Martin, 1999. "Are poorer states worse at targeting their poor?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 373-377, December.
    10. Sanz, Ismael & Velazquez, Francisco J, 2003. "What do OECD countries cut first at a time of fiscal adjustments? A dynamic panel data approach," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt4j744960, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    11. Chris Elbers & Peter Lanjouw & Johan A. Mistiaen & Berk Özler & Kenneth Simler, 2003. "Are Neighbours Equal? Estimating Local Inequality in Three Developing Countries," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2003-52, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Esther Schüring & Franziska Gassmann, 2016. "The political economy of targeting – a critical review," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 34(6), pages 809-829, November.
    13. Emilie Caldeira & Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, 2015. "La décentralisation dans les pays en développement : une revue de la littérature - Decentralization in developing countries: A literature review," CERDI Working papers halshs-01005204, HAL.
    14. Ortiz, Isabel, & Cummins, Matthew. & Capaldo, Jeronim. & Karunanethy, Kalaivani., 2015. "The decade of adjustment : a review of austerity trends 2010-2020 in 187 countries," ILO Working Papers 994890453402676, International Labour Organization.
    15. Delfin Go & Denis Nikitin & Xiongjian Wang & Heng-fu Zou, 2007. "Poverty and Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Literature Survey and Empirical Assessment," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 8(2), pages 251-304, November.
    16. Schüring, Esther & Gassmann, Franziska, 2012. "Whom to target: an obvious choice?," MERIT Working Papers 2012-028, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    17. Galasso, Emanuela & Ravallion, Martin, 2005. "Decentralized targeting of an antipoverty program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 705-727, April.

    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. Ravallion, Martin, 2002. "Are the Poor Protected from Budget Cuts? Evidence for Argentina," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 5(1), pages 1-27, May.
    2. Ravallion,Martin, 2000. "Are the poor protected from budget cuts? theory and evidence for Argentina," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2391, The World Bank.
    3. World Bank, 2007. "Yemen Poverty Assessment : Volume 2. Annexes," World Bank Publications - Reports 7906, The World Bank Group.
    4. Ravallion, Martin, 2003. "Targeted transfers in poor countries : revisiting the tradeoffs and policy options," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3048, The World Bank.
    5. Galasso, Emanuela & Ravallion, Martin, 2000. "Distributional outcomes of a decentralized welfare program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2316, The World Bank.
    6. Galasso, Emanuela & Ravallion, Martin, 2005. "Decentralized targeting of an antipoverty program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 705-727, April.
    7. Martin Ravallion, 2004. "Who is protected from budget cuts?," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 109-122.
    8. Emanuela Galasso & Martin Ravallion, 2004. "Social Protection in a Crisis: Argentina's Plan Jefes y Jefas," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 18(3), pages 367-399.
    9. Conning, Jonathan & Kevane, Michael, 2001. "Community based targeting mechanisms for social safety nets," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 23146, The World Bank.
    10. Brown, Caitlin & Ravallion, Martin & van de Walle, Dominique, 2018. "A poor means test? Econometric targeting in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 109-124.
    11. Philippe De Donder & Michel Le Breton & Eugenio Peluso, 2012. "Majority Voting in Multidimensional Policy Spaces: Kramer–Shepsle versus Stackelberg," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 14(6), pages 879-909, December.
    12. Peter Lanjouw & Rinku Murgai, 2009. "Poverty decline, agricultural wages, and nonfarm employment in rural India: 1983–2004," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(2), pages 243-263, March.
    13. Chakraborty, Pinaki & Mukherjee, Anit K. & Amar Nath, H.K., 2010. "Interstate distribution of central expenditure and subsidies," Working Papers 10/66, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    14. Ravallion, Martin & Galasso, Emanuela & Lazo, Teodoro & Philipp, Ernesto, 2001. "Do workfare participants recover quickly from retrenchment?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2672, The World Bank.
    15. Georges Casamatta & Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau, 2000. "The Political Economy of Social Security," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 503-522, September.
    16. Michael Zemmour, 2015. "Economie politique du financement progressif de la protection sociale," Sciences Po publications 38, Sciences Po.
    17. Jonathan Haughton & Shahidur R. Khandker & Pungpond Rukumnuaykit, 2014. "Microcredit on a Large Scale: Appraising the Thailand Village Fund," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 363-388, December.
    18. Arne Bigsten & Jörgen Levin, 2001. "Growth, Income Distribution, and Poverty," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2001-129, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Ghazala Mansuri, 2004. "Community-Based and -Driven Development: A Critical Review," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 19(1), pages 1-39.
    20. World Bank, 2002. "Poverty in Bangladesh : Building on Progress," World Bank Publications - Reports 15303, The World Bank Group.

    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:kap:itaxpf:v:6:y:1999:i:3:p:411-419. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.