Let’s begin with a stark reminder that cash transfers can have negative unintended effects when supply is limited. For instance, a key objective of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) is to increase access to health. But in a context of limited health providers, could a CCT reduce access to health services by vulnerable non-beneficiaries? An article by Csapo uncovered a relationship between the lower probability of infant death among Brazil’s Bolsa Familia beneficiaries and the higher death probability among non-beneficiary households. Why? Two forces are at play: first, there is a fiscal substitution effect, that is, expansions in Bolsa may reduce budgets to municipal primary care because of the cost of monitoring compliance. Second, the model of municipal primary care itself (Family Health Programme) provides tailored services only to people in designated neighbourhoods: here Bolsa beneficiaries have greater access to these excludable primary care services than do non-beneficiaries with comparable income.

More from Latin America: during the pandemic, Mexico may not have large-scale cash transfer responses. But local interventions emerged. Canedo et al, for example, show that the Jalisco state invested about $23M for one-off transfers to self-employed or informal workers ($526/capita, or 38% of beneficiaries’ earnings). Four months after distribution, the program still had sizable food security and psychological effects.

An interesting way of looking at public works in Ecuador: A paper (in Spanish) by Criollo and Guaraca appraised public works employing local workers in the city of Cuenca and showed that they increased the local value of properties by 7% and that of land by 4%.

Moving to Asia, should Pakistan embrace “Ehsaas and BISP” or invest in “rights-based social protection”? Nadeem et al argue that the former programs are effective in the short term, but not in the long run (because they are less able to “addressing structural issues to make vulnerable households more stable and economically independent”).

A new paper on an old shock: did the Pantawid program in the Philippines help contain the effects of the 2013 Yolanda typhoon? At the time, the government waived conditionalities and benefitted from top-up transfers by WFP and UNICEF. Analysis by Pfutze shows that some statistically significant effects on household consumption, education expenditures and poverty are found along the typhoon path, but with stronger effects detected around 100-150km from the typhoon’s course (see figure 2, p.36).

Speaking of shock responsiveness, Gasior et al examine the extent to which tax-benefit systems of 5 African countries – Ghana, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia – can withstand simulated shocks in earnings or employment. Using the SOUTHMOD dataset and national household surveys, the analysis reveals that benefits tend to protect the poorest households in Ghana and Zambia, while Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda display limited protection (see figure 3A and 3B, p.16). They conclude that “… benefits in the five countries are not responsive to sudden changes in incomes and employment, either (for positive reasons) because the benefits are universal, or (problematically) because they rely on inflexible proxy means tests and tight eligibility criteria”.

Bonus on Mozambique: urban informal self-employed workers have been hard hit by Covid-19. Simulations by Anac et al show that in Maputo, a 6-month cash transfer of about $25/month would have reduced the drop in informal workers’ earning by only 36% (as opposed to 65%). And BTW… Kamran et al provide a great summary of two years of labor market responses to the pandemic!

From workers to the unemployed: can activation programs improve the mental health of long-inactive people? Bastiaan et al examine the effects of Rotterdam’s De Tegenprestatie (‘quid-pro-quo’) program where welfare recipients who are unlikely to find employment in the next 24 months perform a socially beneficial activity (e.g., community service or caregiving) for 20 hours/week. The paper found that the program didn’t affect labor market outcomes among long-term unemployed with or without mental health problems (it did improve self-employment among those without mental health by a half percentage point). Yet, those with mental health problems dropped the use of medication substantially in the years following the program. And among their children there are improved learning and mental health outcomes.

More on Europe: how to offset the impact of higher carbon pricing? Immervoll et al address the question with an illustration from Lithuania: they show that higher fuel prices affect lower-income households disproportionately, and that cash transfers financed by carbon taxes would help cushion effects on large parts of the population.

Three blocks of thematic issues, namely on disability, targeting and “cross-border” issues. On the first, enjoy a compilation of country-level resources on disability: Konstantinidou et al stocktake social protection for people with disabilities in Greece, Bogdanov and Zahariev do so for Bulgaria’s system, while Obradović and Jusić assess the performance of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bonus: Spinu et al have a short comparative analysis of social protection spending in Moldova and Romania.

What was the targeting point about? Howson asserts that community-based targeting is a threat to social stability, while Crew replies that in some contexts an immediate move to alternatives might not possible.

And on “cross-border” issues, an article by Jiboku and Jiboku calls for a recasting of social protection in Nigeria to “stem desperate youth migration”, while Crew argues that recent changes to economic sanctions regimes may improve cash transfer processes across international borders.

Finally, enough reading and keen for a podcast? I liked the recent one by OFIU where Pantuliano, Roy, Fuentes-Nieva, and Aiyar reflected on “what does poverty really mean today?”. Enjoy the weekend!

Ugo Gentilini is from the World Bank’s Social Protection & Jobs global practice. The Social Protection Links newsletter, issued every Friday, distills and discusses a selection of curated resources on the topic, from academic articles to podcasts. The blog is republished on socialprotection.org each week, offering knowledge on social protection to help you stay on top of it — succinctly, regularly and frequently. Previous editions can be found here. 

To sign up to the newsletter or share materials, you can contact Ugo by email ([email protected]), Twitter (@ugentilini) or LinkedIn.

Social Protection Programmes: 
  • Social assistance
    • Social transfers
      • Cash transfers
        • Conditional cash transfers
    • Tax credits / exemptions
  • Labour market / employment programmes
    • Active labour market programmes / Productive inclusion
      • Public works programmes
    • Passive labour market policies
Social Protection Building Blocks: 
  • Policy
    • Coverage
  • Programme design
    • Conditionalities
    • Targeting
  • Programme implementation
  • Programme performance / impact analysis
Social Protection Approaches: 
  • Child-sensitive social protection
  • Shock-responsive social protection
  • Social protection systems
Cross-Cutting Areas: 
  • Consumption and expenditure
  • Health
    • Child health
    • COVID-19
  • Human rights
  • Humanitarian assistance
  • Inequalities
  • Labour market / employment
  • Poverty reduction
  • Resilience
Countries: 
  • Ghana
  • Mozambique
  • Nigeria
  • Tanzania
  • Uganda
  • Zambia
  • Brazil
  • Ecuador
  • Mexico
  • Pakistan
  • Philippines
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Bulgaria
  • Greece
  • Lithuania
  • Moldova
  • Netherlands
  • Romania
The views presented here are the author's and not socialprotection.org's