Efficient Delivery of Cash Transfers to the Poor: Improving the Design of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Equador

Paul Carrillo and Juan Ponce Jarrin ()
Additional contact information
Juan Ponce Jarrin: Department of Economics, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales Flacso

Working Papers from The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy

Abstract: Many governments provide monetary transfers to low-income families. The mechanism through which these subsidies are distributed may contain several inefficiencies that diminish the net-value obtained by the recipients. In this paper, we build and estimate a behavioral dynamic model that allows us to evaluate the efficiency of current and alternative distribution mechanisms. The proposed model is simple and resembles the individuals decision to collect the transfer. To estimate it, we use data from a cash transfer program in Ecuador where recipients incur high transaction costs each time they collect their benefits. Despite its simplicity, our model is able to replicate the observed data remarkably well. We use it to simulate alternative payment mechanisms and show that an adequate design of the delivery of payments can substantially increase the value of cash transfer programs.

Keywords: Cash Transfer Programs; Behavioral Model; Distribution of Payments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2007-04
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Development Economics, Volume 90, Issue 2, November 2009, pp. 276-284

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.gwu.edu/~iiep/assets/docs/papers/Carrillo_IIEPWP2008-8.pdf (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:gwi:wpaper:2008-08

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kyle Renner ().