Estimating the Effects of Social Safety Net Programmes in Bangladesh on Calorie Consumption of Poor Households

Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman ()
Additional contact information
Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman: Doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Economics, The University of Manchester, UK

Bangladesh Development Studies, 2012, vol. 35, issue 2, 67-85

Abstract: The Social Safety Net (SSN) programmes play a key role in Bangladesh to protect the poor households from food insecurity. This study examines the effect of these programs on calorie consumption of poor households using the 2005 Household Income and Expenditure Survey data. Three treatment effect evaluation designs are applied to compare the estimated effects. Mean difference and matching estimators that do not consider endogeneity of treatment dummy produce significant negative effects when applied to the whole sample. Unconfoundedness and overlap assumptions do not exist and the assumptions are satisfied after dropping some observations using the criteria of propensity score. The effect of the SSN programmes on calorie consumption is estimated in the reduced sample using the same econometric methods, and it is found that there are insignificant positive effects in all cases. However, the treatment dummy has serious endogeneity problem, as selection for treatment is also determined by some unobserved factors such as corruption. In this case, instrumental variables regressions taking regional dummies as instruments that do not have relation with calorie consumption are applied, and produce significant positive average treatment effect.

Keywords: Food insecurity; Average treatment effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://bids.org.bd/uploads/publication/BDS/35/35-2 ... ts%20of%20Social.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:badest:0537

Access Statistics for this article

Bangladesh Development Studies is currently edited by Dr. Binayak Sen

More articles in Bangladesh Development Studies from Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) E-17, Agargaon, Sher-E-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka 1207. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Meftaur Rahman, Cheif Publication Officer, BIDS ().