Working Paper: NBER ID: w31720
Authors: Johannes Haushofer; Magdalena Larreboure; Sara Lowes; Leon Mait
Abstract: We study the effects of an unconditional cash transfer program on social preferences of children. The program allocated $1,076 to randomly selected households in rural Kenya. We measure the social preferences of 4,022 children from 1,687 households with survey questions and incentivized behavioral games three years after the intervention. We distinguish between the direct effects on children of recipient households and the spillover effects on children of neighboring households. We do not find consistent evidence that children from treatment and spillover groups are more or less prosocial than children from the control group. Additionally, we find no persistent economic effects of the program. We find some evidence of reduced psychological well-being among adults and children in spillover households.
Keywords: cash transfers; social preferences; children; behavioral economics
JEL Codes: C92; C93; D31; I38; O12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Unconditional cash transfer (UCT) (H53) | changes in social preferences of children (D91) |
| Unconditional cash transfer (UCT) (H53) | prosocial behavior in treatment households (D10) |
| Unconditional cash transfer (UCT) (H53) | prosocial behavior in spillover households (D19) |
| proximity to treated households (R20) | prosocial behavior in spillover households (D19) |
| Unconditional cash transfer (UCT) (H53) | malicious envy in children from treatment households (I24) |