Are Behavioral Change Interventions Needed to Make Cash Transfer Programs Work for Children? Experimental Evidence from Myanmar

Erica M. Field and Elisa M. Maffioli

No 28443, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We experimentally evaluate the impact on child malnutrition of a maternal cash transfer program in Myanmar that was supplemented with Social Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) in a subset of villages. The combination of interventions significantly reduced the proportion of children stunted, while cash alone had no impact on stunting. SBCC appears to have worked in conjunction with cash to reduce stunting by encouraging mothers to increase children’s total calories and protein consumed. The findings provide evidence that information constraints contribute to low income-elasticity of calorie demand among malnourished populations, and underscore the importance of adding SBCC to cash transfer programs.

JEL-codes: I12 I15 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-exp and nep-sea
Note: CH DEV EH
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28443.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:nbr:nberwo:28443

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28443

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().