Assessing the Social Welfare Effects of Government Transfer Programs: Some International Comparisons☆

Nanak Kakwani, Xiaobing Wang, Jing Xu and Ximing Yue

Review of Income and Wealth, 2021, vol. 67, issue 4, 1005-1028

Abstract: This paper offers a new way of assessing government transfer programs using a social welfare function framework. It demonstrates how one can use social welfare functions to measure such programs' efficiency without requiring the specification of a poverty line or particular poverty measures. The paper introduces three alternative principles of targeting, which provide a basis for measuring program efficiency. By applying the methodology developed in this paper, we compare the targeting efficiencies of 44 countries, which include both middle and high‐income countries.

Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:revinw:v:67:y:2021:i:4:p:1005-1028

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