…we propose that donor governments create a fund devoted exclusively to supporting cash transfer programs. The fund would accept competitive applications from organizations—both private and
It only took me and my coauthors seven years, but we now have a paper describing what happens when you give cash grants to the
Nearly a century later… we collected individual-level administrative records of applicants to the Mothers’ Pension program—the first government-sponsored welfare program in the US (1911-1935) —and
Lauren Prather, Stanford PhD student, runs a survey experiment with 1000 Americans. Subjects were told a news story about a government hunger relief program. Half
That’s what some colleagues and I tested in Liberia. I figured I wasn’t stressed out enough already, so why not study harder-to-track, more volatile populations in
If you’ve been following the cash transfer debate on this blog, you might have seen my blog post on a paper with a pointy-headed title: “Credit constraints,
Good sales pitches do not include nuance. The politically savvy know to go for the simple, sexy, even vulgar message. This is a long honorable
If you’ve been following my recent posts and papers on giving cash to the poor, three things that may interest you: First, we’ve put out
I’ve just finished a new paper with a clunky title (the kind that economics referees hopefully love), Credit Constraints, Occupational Choice, and the Process of
Ought we to help hungry households with cash or with food? Evidence on consumption and nutrition from a randomized control trial in Mexico: households do
New York Times published an article last week, titled “The Future of Not Working.” In it, Annie Lowrie discusses the universal basic income experiments in
The profits — amounting to $150 million in 2004 and growing to nearly $400 million in 2010 — enabled the tribe to build a new
Here is an incredible number: From 2002 to 2012 the World Bank and its client governments invested $9 billion dollars across 93 skills training programs
Fine, cash transfers work okay in Kenyan villages, but should the world use them in wars and refugee crises? Apparently yes. In the first scientifically rigorous
Lately, my research and others have suggested that simple cash handouts might be one of the most effective anti-poverty strategies in the world. Is it
I’m going to get off the cash transfer wagon on this blog because it’s getting boring for me and for you. But first… am I an evangelist
Kevin Starr and Laura Hattendorf of Mulago explain why they think the evidence for cash transfers to the poor is overrated. Basically, it comes down to
What happens when $1000 of manna falls onto your mobile phone? The GiveDirectly study of unconditional cash to poor farmers in Kenya is out. The
I’m breaking my blog holiday. It’s a special occasion: Planet Money reporters David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein went to Kenya to see the work of a
