Monitoring Targeting Performance When Decentralized Allocations to the Poor are Unobserved


Book Description

Program funding and design choices by the central government can greatly affect the targeting performance of decentralized social programs. The allocation to a province should depend on how successful it is at reaching the poor with the extra resources, rather than how poor it is. New measurement tools can help monitor performance with limited data.National antipoverty programs often rely heavily on provincial governments. The center targets poor provinces in the hope that they will reach their own poor. Without successful intraprovincial targeting, however, even dramatic redistribution from rich to poor provinces can have little impact on poverty nationally.However, data for assessing performance at provincial level are often far from ideal. Can a centralized government monitor the performance of decentralized social programs in reaching the poor when their benefit incidence is unobserved?Ravallion shows that the poverty map and the corresponding spending allocation across geographic areas allow one to identify the latent differences in mean allocations to the poor versus the nonpoor. The national measure of targeting performance is also subgroup-decomposable.Ravallion uses an application to an antipoverty program in Argentina (Trabajar II) to assess performance in reaching the poor and to measure the relative contributions to the program's performance - before and after reforms - of the center's provincial reallocation and decentralized targeting.Funding and program design changes led to large gains for the poor, although with diverse performance across provinces.Program funding and design choices by the central government can greatly affect the targeting performance of decentralized social programs. The allocation to a province should depend on how successful it is at reaching the poor with the extra resources, rather than how poor it is.Design choices should provide incentives for provincial governments to target resources to the poor. Finding feasible ways to monitor their performance and adjust central government's efforts accordingly are then crucial to better outcomes for poor people.This paper - a product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to provide better tools for monitoring the impact on poverty of World Bank projects. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under research project Policies for Poor Areas (RPO 681-39).




Di Bao


Book Description

Concerns about incentives and targeting naturally arise when cash transfers are used to fight poverty. The authors address these concerns in the context of China's Di Bao program, which uses means-tested transfers to try to assure that no registered urban resident has an income below a stipulated poverty line. There is little sign in the data of poverty traps due to high benefit withdrawal rates. Targeting performance is excellent by various measures. Di Bao appears to be better targeted than any other program in the developing world. However, all but one measure of targeting performance is found to be uninformative, or even deceptive, about impacts on poverty. The authors find that the majority of the poor are not receiving help, even with a generous allowance for measurement errors. While on paper, Di Bao would eliminate urban poverty, it falls well short of that ideal in practice.




Spatial Inequality and Development


Book Description

What exactly is spatial inequality? Why does it matter? And what should be the policy response to it? These questions have become important in recent years as the spatial dimensions of inequality have begun to attract considerable policy interest. In China, Russia, India, Mexico, and South Africa, as well as most other developing and transition economies, spatial and regional inequality - of economic activity, incomes, and social indicators - is on the increase. Spatial inequality is a dimension of overall inequality, but it has added significance when spatial and regional divisions align with political and ethnic tensions to undermine social and political stability. Also important in the policy debate is a perceived sense that increasing internal spatial inequality is related to greater openness of economies, and to globalization in general. Despite these important concerns, there is remarkably little systematic documentation of what has happened to spatial and regional inequality over the last twenty years. Correspondingly, there is insufficient understanding of the determinants of internal spatial inequality. This volume attempts to answer the questions posed above, drawing on data from twenty-five countries from all regions of the world. They bring together perspectives and expertise in development economics and in economic geography and form a well-researched introduction to an area of growing analytical and policy importance.




Social Protection in a Crisis


Book Description

The article assesses the impact of Argentina's main social policy response to the severe economic crisis of 2002. The program was intended to provide direct income support for families with dependent sand whose head had become unemployed because of the crisis. Counter factual comparisons are based on a matched subset of applicants not yet receiving program assistance. Panel data spanning the crisis are also used. The program reduced aggregate unemployment, though it attracted as many people into the workforce from inactivity as it did people who otherwise would have been unemployed. Although there was substantial leakage to formally ineligible families and incomplete coverage of those who were eligible, the program did partially compensate many losers from the crisis and reduced extreme poverty.




Protecting the Poor from Macroeconomic Shocks


Book Description

To minimize the harmful impact on poor people of macroeconomic shock, sound policies for dealing with crises, and an adequate public safety net should be in place before a crisis starts.




Development and Welfare Policy in South Asia


Book Description

This book sheds light on social policies in six South Asian countries introduced between 2003 and 2013, examining the ways in which these policies have come about, and what this reflects about the nature of the state in each of these countries. It offers a detailed analysis of the nature of these policies introduced in recent years in Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and illustrates the similarities and differences in policy approaches amongst the six countries. Through this analysis, the book explores the thesis of whether there is a particular type of ‘developmental welfare state’ that can be observed across South Asia. The focus is on social policies or policies designed to address poverty and deliver welfare at the level of programming and design, i.e. the stated intent of these policies. The book also presents an analysis of the fiscal space available in each of the six countries, thereby drawing conclusions about the financial feasibility of a ‘developmental welfare state’ model in the region. This comprehensive book uniquely explores critical aspects of policy debates on a possible move from welfare to ‘rights’. It introduces students and researchers in development studies, social policy and South Asian studies to innovative welfare programmes in South Asia and gives a new perspective on the nature and patterns of welfare in South Asia with the view of tackling inequality and promoting well-being.