The Long-Term Impacts of Grants on Poverty: Nine-Year Evidence from Uganda's Youth Opportunities Program

Christopher Blattman, Nathan Fiala and Sebastian Martinez

American Economic Review: Insights, 2020, vol. 2, issue 3, 287-304

Abstract: In 2008, Uganda gave 400 USD per person to thousands of young people to help them start skilled trades, work more, and raise incomes. Four years on, an experimental evaluation found grants raised work by 17 percent and earnings by 38 percent (Blattman, Fiala, Martinez 2014). After nine years, we find these gains have dissipated. Grantees' investment leveled off; controls eventually increased their incomes through business and casual labor; and so both groups converged in employment, earnings, and consumption levels. We see little effect on mortality, fertility, or family health and education. However, grants had lasting impacts on durable asset stocks and skilled work.

JEL-codes: H53 I32 I38 O15 O22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20190224 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/V0N0HA (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20190224.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20190224.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

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:aea:aerins:v:2:y:2020:i:3:p:287-304

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20190224

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review: Insights is currently edited by Amy Finkelstein

More articles in American Economic Review: Insights from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().