Working Paper: NBER ID: w21623
Authors: Abhijit Banerjee
Abstract: A wide range of interventions, from subsidized grains all the way to conditions on nutrition in conditional cash transfers, have either been tried or put in place in different countries in order to fight under-nutrition. A number of important policy experiments in recent years, directly or indirectly, offer important insights into how best to design these interventions. This essay is an attempt to pull together some of those insights, with the aim of saying something about what the optimal design should look like.
Keywords: cash transfers; nutrition; poverty; conditional cash transfers
JEL Codes: I1; I15; I28; I38
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Cash transfers (F16) | Increased food consumption (D18) |
| Monthly payments (G51) | Higher elasticity of food expenditures (D12) |
| Lump sum payments (J33) | Lower elasticity of food expenditures (D12) |
| Timing and form of transfers (F16) | Affects consumption behavior (D12) |
| Cash transfers targeted towards women (F35) | Enhanced spending on food (D12) |
| More frequent transfers (F16) | Better nutritional outcomes (I14) |