IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wil/wileco/2000-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Community Based Targeting for Social Safety Nets

Author

Abstract

This paper interprets case studies and theory on community involvement in beneficiary selection and benefit delivery for social safety nets. Several considerations should be carefully balanced in assessing the advantages of using community groups as targeting agents. First, benefits from utilizing local information and social capital may be eroded by costly rent-seeking. Second, the potential improvement in targeting criteria from incorporating local notions of deprivation must be tempered by the possibility of program capture by local elites, and by the possibility that local preferences are not pro-poor. Third, performance may be undermined by unforeseen strategic targeting by local communities in response to national funding and evaluation criteria, or by declines in political support.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Conning & Michael Kevane, 2000. "Community Based Targeting for Social Safety Nets," Department of Economics Working Papers 2000-09, Department of Economics, Williams College.
  • Handle: RePEc:wil:wileco:2000-09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/cbt.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Agrawal, Arun & Gibson, Clark C., 1999. "Enchantment and Disenchantment: The Role of Community in Natural Resource Conservation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 629-649, April.
    2. Antonio Estache & J. Cremer & Paul Seabright, 1996. "Decentralizing Public Services: What can we learn from the Theory of the Firm?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/44016, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Gelbach, Jonath B. & Pritchett, Lant H., 1997. "More for the poor is less for the poor : the politics of targeting," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1799, The World Bank.
    4. Munro, Alistair, 1992. "Self-Selection and Optimal In-Sind Transfers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(414), pages 1184-1196, September.
    5. Brown, Charles C. & Oates, Wallace E., 1987. "Assistance to the poor in a federal system," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 307-330, April.
    6. Leach, Melissa & Mearns, Robin & Scoones, Ian, 1999. "Environmental Entitlements: Dynamics and Institutions in Community-Based Natural Resource Management," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 225-247, February.
    7. Casamatta, Georges & Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre, 2000. "Political sustainability and the design of social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 341-364, March.
    8. Aline Coudouel & John Micklewright & Sheila Marnie, 1998. "Targeting Social Assistance in a Transition Economy: the Mahallas in Uzbekistan," Papers iopeps98/4, Innocenti Occasional Papers, Economic Policy Series.
    9. Roberto Perotti, 1993. "Political Equilibrium, Income Distribution, and Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(4), pages 755-776.
    10. Ravallion, Martin & Sen, Binayak, 1994. "Impacts on rural poverty of land-based targeting: Further results for Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 823-838, June.
    11. Coate, Stephen & Morris, Stephen, 1995. "On the Form of Transfers in Special Interests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1210-1235, December.
    12. Case, Anne & Deaton, Angus, 1998. "Large Cash Transfers to the Elderly in South Africa," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1330-1361, September.
    13. Buvinic, Mayra & Gupta, Geeta Rao, 1997. "Female-Headed Households and Female-Maintained Families: Are They Worth Targeting to Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(2), pages 259-280, January.
    14. Haddad, Lawrence & Kanbur, Ravi, 1992. "Intrahousehold inequality and the theory of targeting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 372-378, April.
    15. Cremer, Jacques & Palfrey, Thomas R., 1996. "In or out?: Centralization by majority vote," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 43-60, January.
    16. Lanjouw, Peter & Ravallion, Martin, 1998. "Benefit incidence and the timing of program capture," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1956, The World Bank.
    17. De Donder, Philippe & Hindriks, Jean, 1998. "The Political Economy of Targeting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1-2), pages 177-200, April.
    18. Fox, Jonathan, 1996. "How does civil society thicken? the political construction of social capital in rural Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1089-1103, June.
    19. Roland Benabou, 2000. "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 96-129, March.
    20. Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 1999. "Social relations and cooperation in organizations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 1-25, January.
    21. Enchautegui, Maria E, 1997. "Welfare Payments and Other Economic Determinants of Female Migration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(3), pages 529-554, July.
    22. Glewwe, Paul, 1992. "Targeting assistance to the poor : Efficient allocation of transfers when household income is not observed," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 297-321, April.
    23. Conning, Jonathan, 1999. "Outreach, sustainability and leverage in monitored and peer-monitored lending," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 51-77, October.
    24. Narayan, Deepa & Pritchett, Lant, 1999. "Cents and Sociability: Household Income and Social Capital in Rural Tanzania," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(4), pages 871-897, July.
    25. Jeni Klugman, 1994. "Decentralization: A Survey of Literature from a Human Development Perspective," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-1994-05, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    26. Bebbington, Anthony, 1997. "New states, new NGOs? crises and transitions among rural development NGOs in the Andean region," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(11), pages 1755-1765, November.
    27. Baker, Judy L. & Grosh, Margaret E., 1994. "Poverty reduction through geographic targeting: How well does it work?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(7), pages 983-995, July.
    28. Selden, Mark & You, Laiyin, 1997. "The reform of social welfare in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(10), pages 1657-1668, October.
    29. Brown, L. David & Ashman, Darcy, 1996. "Participation, social capital, and intersectoral problem solving: African and Asian cases," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(9), pages 1467-1479, September.
    30. Echeverri-Gent, John, 1992. "Public participation and poverty alleviation: The experience of reform communists in India's West Bengal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(10), pages 1401-1422, October.
    31. Bardhan, Pranab & Mookherjee, Dilip, 1998. "Expenditure Decentralization and the Delivery of Public Services in Developing Countries," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers 233623, University of California-Berkeley, Department of Economics.
    32. Peter K Cornelius, 1995. "Cash Benefits and Poverty Alleviation in an Economy in Transition: The Case of Lithuania," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 37(2), pages 49-69, July.
    33. 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.
    34. Wang, Xu, 1997. "Mutual empowerment of state and peasantry: Grassroots democracy in rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(9), pages 1431-1442, September.
    35. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1995. "The Design of Income Maintenance Programmes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(2), pages 187-221.
    36. Seabright, Paul, 1996. "Accountability and decentralisation in government: An incomplete contracts model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 61-89, January.
    37. Bergeron, Gilles & Morris, Saul Sutkover & Medina Banegas, Juan Manuel, 1998. "How reliable are group informant ratings? A test of food security ratings in Honduras," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(10), pages 1893-1902, October.
    38. Steve King, 1997. "Poor Relief and English Economic Development Reappraised," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 50(2), pages 360-368, May.
    39. Hanan G. Jacoby, 1997. "Self-Selection and the Redistributive Impact of In-Kind Transfers: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(2), pages 223-249.
    40. Fiszbein, Ariel, 1997. "The Emergence of local capacity: Lessons from Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 1029-1043, July.
    41. Wittman, Donald, 1989. "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1395-1424, December.
    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. Conning, Jonathan & Kevane, Michael, 2002. "Community-Based Targeting Mechanisms for Social Safety Nets: A Critical Review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 375-394, March.
    2. Jonathan Conning & Michael Kevane, 2002. "Why Isn't There More Financial Intermediation in Developing Countries?," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2002-28, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Conning, Jonathan & Kevane, Michael, 2001. "Community based targeting mechanisms for social safety nets," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 23146, The World Bank.
    5. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An Empirical Assessment," MPRA Paper 17773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Serra, Teresa & Poli, Elena, 2015. "Shadow prices of social capital in rural India, a nonparametric approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(3), pages 892-903.
    7. Andersson, Krister P. & Gibson, Clark C. & Lehoucq, Fabrice, 2006. "Municipal politics and forest governance: Comparative analysis of decentralization in Bolivia and Guatemala," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 576-595, March.
    8. Kanbur, Ravi, 2000. "Income distribution and development," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 791-841, Elsevier.
    9. Ravallion, Martin, 2002. "Are the Poor Protected from Budget Cuts? Evidence for Argentina," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 5(01), pages 1-27, May.
    10. Janet Currie & Firouz Gahvari, 2008. "Transfers in Cash and In-Kind: Theory Meets the Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 333-383, June.
    11. Ravallion, Martin, 2003. "Targeted transfers in poor countries : revisiting the tradeoffs and policy options," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3048, The World Bank.
    12. 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.
    13. Miguel Székely, 1997. "Opciones de políticas para la paliación de la pobreza," Research Department Publications 4063, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    14. Miguel Székely, 1997. "Policy Options for Poverty Alleviation," Research Department Publications 4062, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    15. 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.
    16. Sam Hickey, 2007. "Conceptualising the Politics of Social Protection in Africa," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 0407, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    17. Mladovsky, Philipa & Mossialos, Elias, 2008. "A Conceptual Framework for Community-Based Health Insurance in Low-Income Countries: Social Capital and Economic Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 590-607, April.
    18. Christophe MULLER & Sami BIBI, 2008. "Focused Transfer Targeting against Poverty Evidence from Tunisia," THEMA Working Papers 2008-37, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    19. Ravallion,Martin, 2000. "Are the poor protected from budget cuts? theory and evidence for Argentina," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2391, The World Bank.
    20. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4335 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Székely, Miguel, 1997. "Policy Options for Poverty Alleviation," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1277, Inter-American Development Bank.

    More about this item

    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:wil:wileco:2000-09. 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: Greg Phelan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edwilus.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.