Structuring Cash Transfers: Cash Flow Preferences, Seasonality, and Financial Decisions in Rural Kenya

Carolina Kansikas, Anandi Mani and Paul Niehaus

No 30930, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We examine the preferences of low-income households in Kenya over the structure of unconditional cash transfers. Most preferred lumpy transfers, and some preferred deferred receipt—in contrast to the typical structures of safety-net programs, but consistent with evidence on the financial challenges of poverty. Turning to consequences, receiving transfers later in the year raised income 1.5 years later—but willingness to defer receipt was sensitive to small changes in cash flow around the time of decision-making. Taken together, these results illustrate how adapting cash transfer design to the decision-making environment of those in poverty could improve financial choices and outcomes.

JEL-codes: D91 H53 I38 O2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mfd
Note: DEV
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w30930.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:30930

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w30930

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 ().