Abstract
Anti‐poverty programs increasingly target multiple outcomes to address current and future poverty. Conventional evaluation exercises, however, estimate programs’ impact on outcomes separately. We present a framework, drawing from the counting approach, that captures the joint distribution of outcomes and allows evaluating program impact on the distribution of multiple outcomes. We apply the framework to analyze the Philippine conditional cash transfer program using an embedded randomized control trial survey. We observe that the program induced targeted behavioral changes by reducing overall noncompliances to conditionalities, but did not necessarily benefit the poorer families experiencing a larger number of simultaneous noncompliances. The overall positive impact is achieved by leaving the neediest behind. Our results show the valuable contribution of considering the joint distribution of outcomes in evaluating poverty alleviation programs.
Highlights
Poverty alleviation strategies and anti-poverty programs are a fundamental component of welfare policies in both developed and developing countries
They range from a variety of welfare programs in the United States and strategies for tackling poverty, social exclusion, and social immobility in European countries (OECD, 2007, 2018) to socialsecurity programs enhancing food and livelihood security in India (Dutta et al, 2014) and a multitude of social safety net programs in developing countries across the globe, which include cash transfers, in-kind transfers, social pensions, and school-feeding programs targeted to poorer segments of the population
The second wave of the randomised control trial (RCT) evaluation survey is infeasible for our purpose because the control households from the first RCT survey are incorporated into the program from February 2012 onward
Summary
Poverty alleviation strategies and anti-poverty programs are a fundamental component of welfare policies in both developed and developing countries. They range from a variety of welfare programs in the United States (e.g., see CEA, 2018) and strategies for tackling poverty, social exclusion, and social immobility in European countries (OECD, 2007, 2018) to socialsecurity programs enhancing food and livelihood security in India (Dutta et al, 2014) and a multitude of social safety net programs in developing countries across the globe, which include cash transfers, in-kind transfers, social pensions, and school-feeding programs targeted to poorer segments of the population. Due to the multidimensional nature of poverty, anti-poverty programs implicitly target disadvantages in multiple outcomes simultaneously.. Anti-poverty programs targeted to the poorest segment of the population lend themselves naturally to multidimensionality since these people are more likely to experience simultaneous and multiple disadvantages. There is a need to look more closely at how anti-poverty programs affect desired outcomes jointly
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