How Cash Transfers Boost Work and Economic Security

Guy Standing

Working Papers from United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs

Abstract: There has long been a minority view that providing people with cash is an effective way of combating poverty and economic insecurity while promoting livelihoods and work. The mainstream view has been that giving people money, without conditions or obligations, promotes idleness and dependency, while being unnecessarily costly. Better, they contend, would be to allocate the available money to schemes that create jobs and/or human capital and that produce infrastructure. This paper reviews recent evidence on various types of scheme and on several pilot cash transfer schemes, assessing them by reference to principles of social justice.

Keywords: Food aid; vouchers; cash transfers; economic security; public works; social pensions; disability grants; social policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H55 J08 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2007-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:une:wpaper:58

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