Poor households'productive investments of cash transfers: quasi-experimental evidence from Niger

Quentin Stoeffler, Bradford Mills and Patrick Premand

No 7839, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Cash transfer programs have spread rapidly as an instrument to raise household consumption and reduce poverty. Questions remain about the sustainability of cash transfer impacts in low-income settings such as Sub-Saharan Africa and, in particular, on whether cash transfers can foster productive investments in addition to raising immediate consumption among the very poor. This paper presents evidence that a cash transfer project in rural Niger induced investments in assets and productive activities that were sustained among the very poor 18 months after project completion. Results show lasting increases in livestock assets and participation in saving groups (tontines). Cash transfers also contributed to improved agricultural productivity, but no effects in terms of diversification of other household enterprises are found. Productive asset gains are, notably, largest among the poorest of the poor, suggesting that small regular cash transfers combined with enhanced saving mechanisms can relax constraints to asset accumulation among the extreme poor.

Keywords: Inequality; Social Protections&Assistance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-09-27
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/402771474989456640/pdf/WPS7839.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Poor Households’ Productive Investments of Cash Transfers: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Niger (2020)
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:wbk:wbrwps:7839

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi (ryazigi@worldbank.org).