IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp7786.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Old-Age Government Transfers and the Crowding Out of Private Gifts: The 70 and Above Program for the Rural Elderly in Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina

    (University of California, Merced)

  • Juarez, Laura

    (Bank of Mexico)

Abstract

We estimate the crowding out of private transfers caused by 70 y Más – a public assistance program for the rural elderly in Mexico for whom family support is an important source of income. Using data from the Mexican Income and Expenditure Survey and a triple difference approach, we find that the program crowds out private gifts by 37 percent, and it does so mostly by reducing the probability of receiving domestic remittances. As a result, the non-labor income of beneficiaries increases by less than their government transfers. Thus, by reducing their private support to the elderly, domestic donors are dampening the effect of the program, although not completely neutralizing it.

Suggested Citation

  • Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Juarez, Laura, 2013. "Old-Age Government Transfers and the Crowding Out of Private Gifts: The 70 and Above Program for the Rural Elderly in Mexico," IZA Discussion Papers 7786, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7786
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp7786.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Social Interactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1063-1093, Nov.-Dec..
    2. Jensen, Robert T., 2004. "Do private transfers 'displace' the benefits of public transfers? Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 89-112, January.
    3. Brunner, Eric J, 1998. "Free Riders or Easy Riders?: An Examination of the Voluntary Provision of Public Radio," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 97(4), pages 587-604, December.
    4. Andreoni, James, 1989. "Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1447-1458, December.
    5. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    6. Lucas, Robert E B & Stark, Oded, 1985. "Motivations to Remit: Evidence from Botswana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 901-918, October.
    7. Bernheim, B Douglas & Shleifer, Andrei & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "The Strategic Bequest Motive," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 151-182, July.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    9. Santiago Levy & Norbert Schady, 2013. "Latin America's Social Policy Challenge: Education, Social Insurance, Redistribution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 193-218, Spring.
    10. Jorge Durand & William Kandel & Emilio Parrado & Douglas Massey, 1996. "International migration and development in mexican communities," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 33(2), pages 249-264, May.
    11. Cox, Donald, 1987. "Motives for Private Income Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 508-546, June.
    12. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10842 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Juarez, Laura, 2009. "Crowding out of private support to the elderly: Evidence from a demogrant in Mexico," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 454-463, April.
    14. Flore Gubert, 2002. "Do Migrants Insure Those who Stay Behind? Evidence from the Kayes Area (Western Mali)," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 267-287.
    15. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Susan Pozo, 2006. "Remittances as insurance: evidence from Mexican immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 227-254, June.
    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. Catalina Amuedo‐Dorantes & Laura Juarez & Jorge Alonso, 2019. "The Effect Of Noncontributory Pensions On Saving In Mexico," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(2), pages 931-952, April.
    2. Kang, Ji Young & Park, Sojung & Ahn, Seoyeon, 2022. "The effect of social pension on consumption among older adults in Korea," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 22(C).
    3. Tobias Pfutze & Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán, 2019. "Can a Small Social Pension Promote Labor Force Participation? Evidence from the Colombia Mayor Program," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2019), pages 111-154, October.
    4. Jing You & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, 2017. "Smoothing or strengthening the ‘Great Gatsby Curve’? The intergenerational impact of China’s New Rural Pension Scheme," WIDER Working Paper Series 199, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Jorge Alonso & Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Laura Juárez, 2016. "The Effect of Non-contributory Pensions on Saving in Mexico," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 95976, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Pedro Orraca-Romano, 2015. "Does access to free health insurance crowd-out private transfers? Evidence from Mexico’s Seguro Popular," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 24(1), pages 1-34, December.
    7. Ana P. Canedo, 2023. "The Unintended Effects of Social Pensions on Migration: Evidence from Rural Mexico," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-25, February.
    8. Xing Ji & Jingwen Xu & Hongxiao Zhang, 2022. "How Does China’s New Rural Pension Scheme Affect Agricultural Production?," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-23, July.
    9. Miguel Ángel Borrella Mas & Mariano Bosch Mossi & Marcello Sartarelli, 2016. "Non-Contributory Pensions Number-Gender Effects on Poverty and Household Decisions," Working Papers. Serie AD 2016-02, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).

    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. Juarez, Laura, 2009. "Crowding out of private support to the elderly: Evidence from a demogrant in Mexico," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 454-463, April.
    2. Laura Juarez, 2007. "Altruism, Exchange and Crowding Out of Private Support to the Elderly: Evidence from a Demogrant in Mexico," Working Papers 0707, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    3. Nikolov, Plamen & Adelman, Alan, 2019. "Do private household transfers to the elderly respond to public pension benefits? Evidence from rural China," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    4. Grobon, Sébastien & Wolff, François-Charles, 2024. "Do public scholarships crowd out parental transfers? Evidence at the intensive margin from France," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Rapoport, Hillel & Docquier, Frederic, 2006. "The Economics of Migrants' Remittances," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 17, pages 1135-1198, Elsevier.
    6. Catia Batista & Janis Umblijs, 2016. "Do migrants send remittances as a way of self-insurance?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 68(1), pages 108-130.
    7. Pedro Orraca-Romano, 2015. "Does access to free health insurance crowd-out private transfers? Evidence from Mexico’s Seguro Popular," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 24(1), pages 1-34, December.
    8. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Laura Juarez, 2012. "Old-Age Government Transfers and the Crowding Out of Private Gifts: The 70 Plus Program for the Rural Elderly in Mexico," Working Papers 1205, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    9. Orraca Romano, Pedro Paulo, 2016. "Essays on development and labour economics for Mexico," Economics PhD Theses 0816, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    10. Nikolov, Plamen & Bonci, Matthew, 2020. "Do public program benefits crowd out private transfers in developing countries? A critical review of recent evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    11. Mduduzi Biyase & Fiona Tregenna, 2016. "Determinants of remittances in South Africa," SALDRU Working Papers 176, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    12. Zizi GOSCHIN & Monica ROMAN, 2012. "Determinants of the remitting behaviour of Romanian emigrants in an economic crisis context," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 3, pages 87-103, December.
    13. Kazi Abdul, Mannan, 2017. "Motivations for Remittances: A Study of Rural Bangladesh Migrants in Italy," MPRA Paper 97945, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2017.
    14. Yoko Niimi & Thai Hung Pham & Barry Reilly, 2009. "Determinants of Remittances: Recent Evidence Using Data on Internal Migrants in Vietnam," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 19-39, March.
    15. Kristopher Gerardi & Yuping Tsai, 2014. "The Effect of Social Entitlement Programmes on Private Transfers: New Evidence of Crowding Out," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(324), pages 721-746, October.
    16. de Milliano, Marlous & Barrington, Clare & Angeles, Gustavo & Gbedemah, Christiana, 2021. "Crowding-out or crowding-in? Effects of LEAP 1000 unconditional cash transfer program on household and community support among women in rural Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    17. Batista, Catia & Silverman, Dan & Yang, Dean, 2015. "Directed giving: Evidence from an inter-household transfer experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 2-21.
    18. Yamamoto, Wataru, 2013. "Negative economic consequences of ethical campaigns?: Market data evidence," MPRA Paper 49070, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Mathias Sinning, 2011. "Determinants of savings and remittances: empirical evidence from immigrants to Germany," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 45-67, March.
    20. Yoshito Takasaki, 2011. "Fraud and Poverty: Exploring Ex Ante Victim Data," Tsukuba Economics Working Papers 2011-002, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    crowding-out; old-age government transfers; remittances; Mexico;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    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:iza:izadps:dp7786. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.