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
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
[This] illustrates another upside to cash transfers: they can serve as the index funds of international development. An index fund is a bundle of investments
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
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
We meta-analyze enrollment, attendance and dropout impact and cost-effectiveness estimates from forty-two CCT program evaluations in fifteen developing countries. Average impacts and cost-effectiveness estimates for
The nomination comes from Emiliano Huet-vaughn, whose paper I mentioned yesterday. I am having a hard time imagining the competitors, but nominations will continue to be
Are cash transfers the future of development? Paul Niehaus and I will be talk in a small “Tech Salon” the morning of Oct 10 in
Please RSVP now to join Chris Blattman, Paul Niehaus, and your peers in technology and development for the next Technology Salon on cash transfer efficacy, how
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
That’s the question Jennifer Lentfer asked on the Oxfam blog following my post and paper last week on the amazing impacts of cash transfers in Uganda.
More reasons to be less cynical about cash transfers to the poor Poor women with children in Ecuador were selected at random for a cash
The title of the UK Daily Mail article is “Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse… YOUR cash is doled out in envelopes
…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
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
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
New York, Nov 21: NYC: Nov 21st 830-1030am there will be a Technology Salon (update: RSVP here) on the future of cash transfers in development with Paul
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
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
