Motives for Household Private Transfers in Burkina Faso

Harounan Kaziango
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Harounan Kazianga

Working Papers from Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Abstract: Resource transfers among households have received considerable interest among economists in recent years. Two of the main reasons for the surge of interest in household transfers are the information on human nature conveyed by transfer behavior and the implication on income redistribution policy that private transfer might have. Empirical studies, however, provide mixed results on transfer behavior. This is because previous inquiries were confronted with several estimation issues and have focused on data from developed countries where private transfers are already small. This paper contributes to the literature on transfer behavior by using a multifaceted econometric approach to examine the motives of household transfers in Burkina, a low-income country with a well-documented tradition of gift exchanges. The findings suggest that risk sharing is not central to transfers. Altruistic transfers are apparent for the middle income class, but not a low income level. The evidence implies that crowding out may be minimal at a low income level, suggesting that public transfers targeting poor households may be effective.

Keywords: Private transfers; Altruism; Exchanges; Risk Sharing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D64 I30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2004-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-dev
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Related works:
Journal Article: Motives for household private transfers in Burkina Faso (2006)
Working Paper: Motives for Household Private Transfers in Burkina Faso (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egc:wpaper:895

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