Great Expectations: Responses to Current and Future Transfers for Low-Income Individuals

Achyuta Adhvaryu, Jean-François Gauthier, Pamela Jakiela and Dean Karlan

No 34857, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: How does the expectation of aid change behavior? We propose a simple approach to separate expectations effects from the direct effects of relaxing resource constraints: compare the promise of a program to the program itself. We test this approach in a four-arm randomized controlled trial of cash transfers in Uganda. Both those who received cash and those promised-to-receive cash increase their labor supply and investment. Immediate transfers also increase household expenditures and savings. Our results are not consistent with standard life-cycle models; they are better explained by a model in which the transfer increases individual labor productivity.

JEL-codes: I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
Note: DEV
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w34857.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

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:34857

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w34857
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

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 ().