IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/13359.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shooting a Moving Target: Choosing Targeting Tools for Social Programs

Author

Listed:
  • Beuermann, Diether
  • Hoffmann, Bridget
  • Stampini, Marco
  • Vargas, David
  • Vera-Cossio, Diego A.

Abstract

A key challenge for policymakers is how to design methods to select beneficiaries of social programs when income is volatile and the target population is dynamic. We evaluate a traditional static proxy-means test (PMT) and three policy-relevant alternatives. We use a unique panel dataset of a random sample of households in Colombia's social registry that contains information before, during, and after the 2020 economic crisis. Updating the PMT data does not improve social welfare relative to the static PMT. Relaxing the eligibility threshold reduces the exclusion error, increases the inclusion error, and increases social welfare. A dynamic method that uses data on shocks to estimate a variable component of income reduces exclusion errors and limits the expansion in coverage, increasing social welfare during the economic crisis. We consider these targeting metrics together with the curvature of governments social welfare function and budgetary and political constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • Beuermann, Diether & Hoffmann, Bridget & Stampini, Marco & Vargas, David & Vera-Cossio, Diego A., 2024. "Shooting a Moving Target: Choosing Targeting Tools for Social Programs," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13359, Inter-American Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:13359
    DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0005502
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Shooting-a-Moving-Target-Choosing-Targeting-Tools-for-Social-Programs.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0005502?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Letícia Bartholo & Joana Mostafa & Rafael Guerreiro Osorio, 2018. "Integration of administrative records for social protection policies: contributions from the Brazilian experience," Working Papers 169, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    2. Emily Aiken & Suzanne Bellue & Dean Karlan & Chris Udry & Joshua E. Blumenstock, 2022. "Machine learning and phone data can improve targeting of humanitarian aid," Nature, Nature, vol. 603(7903), pages 864-870, March.
    3. Ashley Pople & Ruth Hill & Stefan Dercon & Ben Brunckhorst, 2021. "Anticipatory Cash Transfers in Climate Disaster Response," CSAE Working Paper Series 2021-07, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Abay, Kibrom A. & Yonzan, Nishant & Kurdi, Sikandra & Tafere, Kibrom, 2022. "Revisiting poverty trends and the role of social protection systems in Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic," IFPRI discussion papers 2142, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Berner, Heidi & Van Hemelryck, Tamara, 2021. "Social information systems and registries of recipients of non-contributory social protection in Latin America in response to COVID-19," Documentos de Proyectos 46868, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    3. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Hasan, Syed & Sharma, Uttam, 2024. "The Role of Trainee Selection in the Effectiveness of Vocational Training: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Nepal," IZA Discussion Papers 16705, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Aysegül Kayaoglu & Ghassan Baliki & Tilman Brück & Melodie Al Daccache & Dorothee Weiffen, 2023. "How to conduct impact evaluations in humanitarian and conflict settings," HiCN Working Papers 387, Households in Conflict Network.
    5. Oeindrila Dube & Joshua E. Blumenstock & Michael Callen & Michael J. Callen, 2022. "Measuring Religion from Behavior: Climate Shocks and Religious Adherence in Afghanistan," CESifo Working Paper Series 10114, CESifo.
    6. Luis Henrique Paiva & Pedro H. G. Ferreira de Souza & Letícia Bartholo & Sergei Soares, 2020. "Avoiding the poverty pandemic: the potential of the Bolsa Família programme and the Single Registry as answers to COVID-19," Policy Research Brief 67, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    7. Letícia Bartholo & Joana Mostafa & Rafael Guerreiro Osorio, 2018. "Integration of administrative records for social protection policies: contributions from the Brazilian experience," Working Papers 169, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    8. Martina Jakob & Sebastian Heinrich, 2023. "Measuring Human Capital with Social Media Data and Machine Learning," University of Bern Social Sciences Working Papers 46, University of Bern, Department of Social Sciences.
    9. Fisker,Peter Simonsen & Gallego-Ayala,Jordi Jose & Malmgren Hansen,David & Pave Sohnesen,Thomas & Murrugarra,Edmundo, 2022. "Guiding Social Protection Targeting Through Satellite Data in São Tomé and Príncipe," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 177340, The World Bank.
    10. Kibrom A Abay & Nishant Yonzan & Sikandra Kurdi & Kibrom Tafere, 2023. "Revisiting Poverty Trends and the Role of Social Protection Systems in Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 32(Supplemen), pages 44-68.
    11. Juan Carlos Perdomo, 2023. "The Relative Value of Prediction in Algorithmic Decision Making," Papers 2312.08511, arXiv.org.
    12. Feriga, Moustafa & Lozano Gracia, Nancy & Serneels, Pieter, 2024. "The Impact of Climate Change on Work Lessons for Developing Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 16914, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Nissan, Hannah & Simmons, Will & Downs, Shauna M., 2022. "Building climate-sensitive nutrition programmes," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113561, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Rose Camille Vincent & Stephan Dietrich & Kyle McNabb, 2023. "Compliance rates with local and national business taxes: Evidence from Kampala, Uganda," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-134, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Adel Daoud & Felipe Jordán & Makkunda Sharma & Fredrik Johansson & Devdatt Dubhashi & Sourabh Paul & Subhashis Banerjee, 2023. "Using Satellite Images and Deep Learning to Measure Health and Living Standards in India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 167(1), pages 475-505, June.
    16. Tao Qi & Fangzhao Wu & Chuhan Wu & Liang He & Yongfeng Huang & Xing Xie, 2023. "Differentially private knowledge transfer for federated learning," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    17. Fabianna Bacil & Charlotte Bilo & Wesley Silva, 2020. "Social protection coverage toolkit," Research Report 50, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    18. Anne Esser & Charlotte Bilo & Raquel Tebaldi, 2019. "How can cash transfer programmes work for women and children? A review of gender- and child-sensitive design features," Working Papers 178, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    19. Till Koebe & Alejandra Arias-Salazar & Timo Schmid, 2023. "Releasing survey microdata with exact cluster locations and additional privacy safeguards," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, December.
    20. Aiken, Emily L. & Bedoya, Guadalupe & Blumenstock, Joshua E. & Coville, Aidan, 2023. "Program targeting with machine learning and mobile phone data: Evidence from an anti-poverty intervention in Afghanistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social protection; Household income; Poverty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    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:idb:brikps:13359. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    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.