Innocenti Working Papers The Effect of Cash Transfers and Household Vulnerability on Food Insecurity in Zimbabwe AUTHOR(S) Garima Bhalla; Sudhanshu Handa; Gustavo Angeles; David Seidenfeld Published: 2016 Innocenti Working Papers We study the impact of the Zimbabwe Harmonized Social Cash Transfer (HSCT) on household food security after 12 months of implementation. The programme has had a strong impact on a well-known food security scale – the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) – but muted impacts on food consumption expenditure. However aggregate food consumption hides dynamic activity taking place within the household where the cash is used to obtain more food from the market and rely less on food received as gifts. The cash in turn gives them greater choice in their food basket which improves diet diversity. Further investigation of the determinants of food consumption and the HFIAS shows that several dimensions of household vulnerability correlate more strongly with the HFIAS than food consumption. Labour constraints, which is a key vulnerability criterion used by the HSCT to target households, is an important predictor of the HFIAS but not food expenditure, and its effect on food security is even larger during the lean season. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 48 | Thematic area: Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: cash transfers, food resources, food security, vulnerable groups, zimbabwe × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Garima Bhalla; Sudhanshu Handa; Gustavo Angeles; David Seidenfeld 2016 The Effect of Cash Transfers and Household Vulnerability on Food Insecurity in Zimbabwe. , pp. 48.
Innocenti Working Papers Child Poverty and Deprivation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: National Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (N-MODA) AUTHOR(S) Yekaterina Chzhen; Lucia Ferrone Published: 2015 Innocenti Working Papers This report presents the results of the National Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (N-MODA) for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The study shows that almost all children aged 0 to 4 (98.1%) are deprived in at least one dimension, and a third (33.2%) are deprived in four or more dimensions at a time. Children in rural areas are more likely to be deprived in Information and Housing (mostly driven by lack of proper sanitation) than urban children, suggesting infrastructural problems. Having a mother with no or only primary education increases the probability of being deprived in all dimensions except Nutrition and Housing. This study also finds a high degree of overlap across dimensions. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 53 | Thematic area: Economic Development | Tags: econometric analysis, statistical analysis × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Yekaterina Chzhen; Lucia Ferrone 2015 Child Poverty and Deprivation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: National Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (N-MODA). , pp. 53.
Innocenti Working Papers The Impact of Zambia’s Unconditional Child Grant on Schooling and Work: Results from a large-scale social experiment AUTHOR(S) Sudhanshu Handa; Luisa Natali; David Seidenfeld; Gelson Tembo; Zambia Cash Transfer Evaluation Team Published: 2015 Innocenti Working Papers Since the mid 1990s, and following the successful implementation of large scale programmes in Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, cash transfers have become an important part of the poverty alleviation toolkit in developing countries, even among the poorest where, for many, such programmes seemed both administratively complex or simply unaffordable. The ‘African model’ of cash transfers has several distinguishing features which differentiate it from those in Latin America. In this article we take advantage of the unconditional nature of the Zambian CGP, which targets families with very young children and whose objectives are focused on their health and development, to see if the programme has an impact on the schooling and work of school-age children who in principle are not the main target population of the programme. We use data from a large-scale social experiment involving 2,500 households, half of whom were randomized out to a delayed-entry control group, which was implemented to assess the impact of the programme. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 34 | Thematic area: Economic Development | Tags: child labour, educational costs, schooling × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Sudhanshu Handa; Luisa Natali; David Seidenfeld; Gelson Tembo; Zambia Cash Transfer Evaluation Team 2015 The Impact of Zambia’s Unconditional Child Grant on Schooling and Work: Results from a large-scale social experiment. , pp. 34.
Innocenti Working Papers Cash Transfers and Climate-resilient Development: Evidence from Zambia’s Child Grant Programme AUTHOR(S) Kathleen Lawlor; Sudhanshu Handa; David Seidenfeld; Zambia Cash Transfer Evaluation Team Published: 2015 Innocenti Working Papers This study investigates whether cash transfers enable households facing weather and other negative income shocks to avoid adverse coping strategies that can lead to poverty traps. While cash transfers are not routinely considered in the policy discourse concerning climate adaptation programming, because ex-ante transfers enable households to avoid negative coping strategies and even increase food consumption in the face of covariate weather shocks, cash transfers offer a sound approach for building climate-resilience amongst the world’s most vulnerable and facilitating their “autonomous adaptation” to a changing environment. Cash also enables households to productively cope with the many other idiosyncratic shocks the rural poor routinely face. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 44 | Thematic area: Child Poverty, Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: cash transfers, child nutrition, nutrition projects, poverty, poverty alleviation, poverty reduction, rural poverty × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Kathleen Lawlor; Sudhanshu Handa; David Seidenfeld; Zambia Cash Transfer Evaluation Team 2015 Cash Transfers and Climate-resilient Development: Evidence from Zambia’s Child Grant Programme. , pp. 44.
Innocenti Working Papers Social Networks and Risk Management in Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme AUTHOR(S) Silvio Daidone; Sudhanshu Handa; Benjamin Davis; Mike Park; Robert D. Osei; Isaac Osei-Akoto Published: 2015 Innocenti Working Papers Understanding how household consumption, investment and saving decisions respond to transfer income is critical to public policy. In developing countries, saving or otherwise investing in the future is difficult for poor households which often struggle to meet basic expenses, while high debt burdens are also obstacles to saving. Poor households in rural areas of developing countries typically manage risk via informal exchanges or transfers among extended family, friends and neighbours. Motivated by the community dynamics observed in the qualitative assessment of LEAP and the unpredictable and lumpy payments made by the programme during the evaluation period, the main interest of this paper is to assess within a quantitative framework the impact of LEAP on household risk reduction strategies via reintegration in, and strengthening of, social networks and reduction of debt exposure. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 40 | Thematic area: Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: cash transfers, debt management, income household, social development policies, social protection × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Silvio Daidone; Sudhanshu Handa; Benjamin Davis; Mike Park; Robert D. Osei; Isaac Osei-Akoto 2015 Social Networks and Risk Management in Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme . , pp. 40.
Innocenti Working Papers Household Welfare Measurement in Bangladesh: A tale of two short consumption modules AUTHOR(S) Luisa Natali; Chris De Neubourg Published: 2014 Innocenti Working Papers Two short consumption modules were piloted in Bogra and Sirajganj (Bangladesh) in May-June 2012 as part of the Global MICS5 Pilot. This paper aims at validating this exercise and assessing the accuracy and reliability of the consumption estimates obtained. The use of a benchmark consumption module is essential in order to assess how well the two short options fare; the analysis therefore consists of a systematic comparison of both short modules with a benchmark. The attempt made is to isolate and test the impact of the length (degree of commodity) of the consumption questionnaire on the quality of consumption and poverty estimates as well as distributional measures obtained. We conclude that it is feasible to include a short consumption module in MICS (Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys). + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 45 | Thematic area: Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: consumer expenditure, consumption, expenditures, poverty, surveys × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Luisa Natali; Chris De Neubourg 2014 Household Welfare Measurement in Bangladesh: A tale of two short consumption modules. , pp. 45.
Innocenti Working Papers Child Poverty and Deprivation in Mali: The first national estimates AUTHOR(S) Marlous de Milliano; Sudhanshu Handa Published: 2014 Innocenti Working Papers In Mali the national child deprivation rate is 50%, slightly higher than the national (monetary) child poverty rate of 46%. The overlap of children who are both poor and deprived is 29% of all children, hence not all children who are deprived are living in poor households as defined by the national poverty line. Only 58% of children who are deprived live in poor households. Similarly, only 62% of children in poor households are multidimensionally deprived. Consequently, policies that are targeted exclusively on monetary poverty will miss children who are deprived. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 72 | Thematic area: Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: economic analysis, monetary policy, poverty, statistical data × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Marlous de Milliano; Sudhanshu Handa 2014 Child Poverty and Deprivation in Mali: The first national estimates. , pp. 72.
Innocenti Working Papers Exploring the Late Impact of the Financial Crisis using Gallup World Poll Data AUTHOR(S) Goran Holmqvist; Luisa Natali Published: 2014 Innocenti Working Papers This paper explores the use of Gallup World Poll Data to assess the impact of the Great Recession on various dimensions of well-being in 41 OECD and/or EU countries from 2007 up until 2013. It should be read as a complementary background paper to the UNICEF Report Card which explores trends in child well-being in EU/OECD countries since 2007/8. Overall the findings provide clear indications that the crisis has had an impact across a number of self-reported dimensions of well-being. Indeed, a strong correlation between the intensity of the recession and the worsening of people’s perceptions about their own life is recorded since 2007. Data also indicate that the impact has still not peaked in a number of countries where indicators were still deteriorating as late as 2013. A “League Table” is also presented where countries are ranked in terms of change between 2007 and 2013 for four selected Gallup World Poll indicators related material well-being, perceptions of how society treats its children, health and subjective well-being. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 40 | Thematic area: Child Poverty, Child well-being, Economic Development | Tags: child well-being, economic crisis, indicators, surveys × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Goran Holmqvist; Luisa Natali 2014 Exploring the Late Impact of the Financial Crisis using Gallup World Poll Data. , pp. 40.
Innocenti Working Papers Child Poverty and the Great Recession in the United States AUTHOR(S) Marianne Bitler; Hilary Hoynes; Elira Kuka Published: 2014 Innocenti Working Papers In the midst of the Great Recession, median real household income fell from $61,597 in 2007 to $57,025 in 2010 and $51,007 in 2012. Given that the effects of the Great Recession on unemployment were greater for less skilled workers the authors expect the effects of the Great Recession on household incomes to be larger in relative terms for individuals in the lower end of the income distribution. To explore this issue, in this paper, they comprehensively examine the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 36 | Thematic area: Child Poverty, Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: child well-being, economic and social conditions, economic crisis, monetary policy × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Marianne Bitler; Hilary Hoynes; Elira Kuka 2014 Child Poverty and the Great Recession in the United States. , pp. 36.
Innocenti Working Papers Trends in Child Well-being in EU Countries during the Great Recession: A cross-country comparative perspective AUTHOR(S) Luisa Natali; Bruno Martorano; Sudhanshu Handa; Goran Holmqvist; Yekaterina Chzhen Published: 2014 Innocenti Working Papers This paper reports on how children have fared during the period of the global economic crisis (Great Recession) in rich European countries. The authors provide a descriptive overview of the evolution in a series of child well-being indicators over time (2007/8-2012/3 ) in 32 countries (the EU-28 plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey). The focus is on key child and adolescent outcome indicators that are expected to have been affected by the crisis and its related real-economy effects in the short and medium-term, including child monetary poverty and material deprivation, subjective well-being, and transition to adulthood (including education and employment). Countries’ performances are compared and ranked according to the change they experienced in these indicators over the period under analysis. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 56 | Thematic area: Child Poverty, Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: child well-being, economic crisis, european union, labour market, monetary policy × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Luisa Natali; Bruno Martorano; Sudhanshu Handa; Goran Holmqvist; Yekaterina Chzhen 2014 Trends in Child Well-being in EU Countries during the Great Recession: A cross-country comparative perspective. , pp. 56.
Innocenti Working Papers Young People (not) in the Labour Market in Rich Countries during the Great Recession AUTHOR(S) Yekaterina Chzhen; Dominic Richardson Published: 2014 Innocenti Working Papers The global financial crisis of 2007/2008 spilled over into the real economy reducing demand for labour and increasing unemployment. Young people were hit hard, with record numbers of 15-24-year-olds out of work and many of them not in education, employment or training (NEET). More than five years since the outbreak of the financial crisis, the economic recovery remains weak and uneven. The study documents a substantial worsening in the youth labour market situation during the Great Recession across the EU and/or OECD, particularly in countries that suffered greater falls in economic output per capita. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 34 | Thematic area: Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: european union, temporary employment, unemployment, youth × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Yekaterina Chzhen; Dominic Richardson 2014 Young People (not) in the Labour Market in Rich Countries during the Great Recession. , pp. 34.
Innocenti Working Papers Subjective Well-being, Risk Perceptions and Time Discounting: Evidence from a large-scale cash transfer programme AUTHOR(S) Bruno Martorano; Sudhanshu Handa; Carolyn Halpern; Harsha Thirumurthy Published: 2014 Innocenti Working Papers The risk and time preferences of individuals as well as their subjective expectations regarding the future are likely to play an important role in choice behaviour. Measurement of these individual characteristics in large-scale surveys has been a recent development and empirical evidence on their associations with behaviour remains limited. We summarize the results of measuring individuals’ attitudes towards inter-temporal choice, risk, and the future in a large-scale field survey in Kenya. We find very low rates of inconsistency in interpreting questions on time and risk preferences. Cash transfers alone do not appear to impact time discounting or risk aversion, but they do have an important impact on subjective well-being measures and on future perceptions of quality of life. + - Cite this publication | No. of pages: 40 | Thematic area: Economic Development, Social Policies | Tags: risk, surveys, transfer income × COPY BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Bruno Martorano; Sudhanshu Handa; Carolyn Halpern; Harsha Thirumurthy 2014 Subjective Well-being, Risk Perceptions and Time Discounting: Evidence from a large-scale cash transfer programme. , pp. 40.
