 In search of the holy grail: Post-intervention effects of an unconditional cash transfer program in ZambiaSudhanshu Handa, Gelson Tembo, Luisa Natali and Averi Chakrabarti Journal of Development Economics, 2025, vol. 174, issue C Abstract: The Zambian government's Child Grant Program (CGP) provided unconditional cash transfers to households with young children. Previous evidence from an experimental evaluation while the CGP was in place (2010–2014) showed large, positive program impacts. In this analysis, we use post-program survey data from 2017 to assess whether impacts are sustained. We find that none of the CGP impacts – on outcomes such as food security and child material well-being – persist due to impact fade-out in the treatment group but also catch-up in the control group. Some outcomes (e.g. livestock) stay the same or increase in the treatment group, but they also increase in the control group to the extent that there is convergence. Our results suggest that for households living at the edge of survival, small cash transfers (at US$12 per month) are unlikely to lead to sustained improvements in living standards after the cessation of transfers. Keywords: Cash transfers; Social protection; Zambia; Long-term impacts (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:174:y:2025:i:c:s0304387825000057 DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103454 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Development Economics is currently edited by M. R. Rosenzweig More articles in Journal of Development Economics from Elsevier |
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