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The impact of the Kenya Cash Transfer Program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children on household spending

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  • The Kenya CT-OVC Evaluation Team

Abstract

The Kenya Cash Transfer Program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) is the government's flagship social protection programme, reaching over 130,000 households and 260,000 orphans and vulnerable children across the country as of late 2011. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether the CT-OVC has changed the preferences of households in terms of their consumption behaviour. We compare standard difference-in-differences programme effects with ex-ante expected effects given baseline expenditure elasticities. As a result of the programme, participating households had significantly higher expenditures than control households on food, health, and clothing and significantly less spending on alcohol and tobacco. Programme impacts were also seen on spending in four of seven food groups. To test whether the programme simply moves households along their total expenditure Engel curve or in fact shifts that curve, we compare ex-ante expected behaviours with the ex-post actual response of households to the programme. We find in fact that in about one-half of the consumption categories ex-ante predicted and ex-post actual effects are significantly different, implying that preferences may have changed among programme recipients. We then directly test whether the programme has induced significant changes in expenditure elasticities (as implied by their associated marginal propensities to consume) and find evidence of this for alcohol and tobacco, and to a lesser extent for food, health and transportation and communication.

Suggested Citation

  • The Kenya CT-OVC Evaluation Team, 2012. "The impact of the Kenya Cash Transfer Program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children on household spending," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 9-37, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevef:v:4:y:2012:i:1:p:9-37
    DOI: 10.1080/19439342.2011.653980
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    Cited by:

    1. Sudhanshu Handa & Luisa Natali & David Seidenfeld & Gelson Tembo, 2016. "The impact of Zambia’s unconditional child grant on schooling and work: results from a large-scale social experiment," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 346-367, July.
    2. Brugh, Kristen & Angeles, Gustavo & Mvula, Peter & Tsoka, Maxton & Handa, Sudhanshu, 2018. "Impacts of the Malawi social cash transfer program on household food and nutrition security," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 19-32.
    3. 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).
    4. Solomon Asfaw & Silvio Daidone & Benjamin Davis & Josh Dewbre & Alessandro Romeo & Paul Winters & Katia Covarrubias & Habiba Djebbari, 2012. "Analytical Framework for Evaluating the Productive Impact of Cash Transfer Programmes on Household Behaviour – Methodological Guidelines for the From Protection to Production Project," Working Papers 101, International Policy Centre.
    5. Handa, Sudhanshu & Peterman, Amber & Huang, Carolyn & Halpern, Carolyn & Pettifor, Audrey & Thirumurthy, Harsha, 2015. "Impact of the Kenya Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children on early pregnancy and marriage of adolescent girls," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 36-45.
    6. Freddy Houngbe & Audrey Tonguet-Papucci & Chiara Altare & Myriam Ait-Aissa & Jean-François Huneau & Lieven Huybregts & Patrick Kolsteren, 2017. "Unconditional cash transfers do not prevent children's undernutrition in the Moderate Acute Malnutrition Out (MAM'Out) cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural Burkina Faso," Post-Print hal-01779025, HAL.
    7. Bhalla, Garima & Handa, Sudhanshu & Angeles, Gustavo & Seidenfeld, David, 2018. "The effect of cash transfers and household vulnerability on food security in Zimbabwe," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 82-99.

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