Integrating Social Protection Strategies for Improved Impact: A Comparative Evaluation of Cash Transfers and Index Insurance in Kenya

Nathaniel Jensen, Munenobu Ikegami and Andrew Mude ()
Additional contact information
Andrew Mude: International Livestock Research Institute

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, 2017, vol. 42, issue 4, No 7, 675-707

Abstract: Abstract Social protection programmes aim to use public funds to reduce poverty and vulnerability. Cash transfers have proven to be an effective social protection strategy in many contexts but are extremely expensive. Researchers have suggested that integrating multiple interventions could improve the efficiency of protection programmes, but there are few evidence-based recommendations on how to best implement such approaches. This study uses household-level panel data to estimate the marginal impacts of observed cash and index insurance transfers (subsidies) on household income in northern Kenya. Those estimates are used to simulate sample-level poverty indices as the outcome of a standard cash transfer programme and of a similar programme that reallocates a small portion of the budget as an insurance subsidy to the vulnerable. We find that the integrated programme reduces poverty to a greater degree than do cash transfers alone, highlighting the importance of protecting the vulnerable in addition to supporting the poorest.

Keywords: social protection; HSNP; index-based livestock insurance; pastoralists; social welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41288-017-0060-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to 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:pal:gpprii:v:42:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1057_s41288-017-0060-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/finance/journal/41288/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41288-017-0060-5

Access Statistics for this article

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice is currently edited by Christophe Courbage

More articles in The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice from Palgrave Macmillan, The Geneva Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().