When (not) to target social programs: the simple arithmetic of the effectiveness of scale-up

Sam Jones, Telça Massingue and Hilário Muchabel

No wp-2025-80, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: We develop a framework to assess when social programmes should prioritize expanding coverage versus improving targeting accuracy. Rather than treating universalism and targeting as a binary choice, we derive a practical rule-of-thumb based on observed eligibility rates and programme quotas to indicate when marginal welfare gains from expanding programme access may outweigh those from improved targeting.

Keywords: Social protection; Cash transfers; Targeting; Universalism; Welfare impact; Mozambique (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publ ... iveness-scale-up.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:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-80

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Siméon Rapin ().