Multidimensional targeting : identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs

<p>Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have two main objectives: reduce poverty and increase the human capital of children. To reach these objectives, transfers are given to poor households conditioned on investments in their children’s education, health, and nutrition. Targeting mechani...

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Main Authors: Azevedo, V, Robles, M
Format: Working paper
Language:English
Published: Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) 2010
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author Azevedo, V
Robles, M
author_facet Azevedo, V
Robles, M
author_sort Azevedo, V
collection OXFORD
description <p>Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have two main objectives: reduce poverty and increase the human capital of children. To reach these objectives, transfers are given to poor households conditioned on investments in their children’s education, health, and nutrition. Targeting mechanisms used by CCTs have been generally successful in identifying the income poor, but have not fared as well in identifying households that under-invest in human capital. These mechanisms do not consider the multidimensional aspect of poverty, even when composite measures are used, as it does not capture each dimension-specific deprivation. This paper proposes a multidimensional targeting approach to identifying beneficiaries that explicitly take in consideration the multiple objectives of the CCTs and the multiple deprivations of the poor household. Results indicate that the proposed multidimensional targeting methodology significantly improves the selection of households with children who are most deprived in the dimensions often relevant to CCTs. In the case of Mexico’s <i>Oportunidades</i>, ex-ante evaluation results indicate that the multidimensional identification of beneficiaries increases the welfare impact of transfers compared to alternative targeting models.</p>
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spelling oxford-uuid:9bf7fce7-942a-41c2-9447-b867f4865b882022-03-27T00:32:51ZMultidimensional targeting : identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs Working paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:9bf7fce7-942a-41c2-9447-b867f4865b88EnglishOxford University Research Archive - ValetOxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI)2010Azevedo, VRobles, M<p>Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have two main objectives: reduce poverty and increase the human capital of children. To reach these objectives, transfers are given to poor households conditioned on investments in their children’s education, health, and nutrition. Targeting mechanisms used by CCTs have been generally successful in identifying the income poor, but have not fared as well in identifying households that under-invest in human capital. These mechanisms do not consider the multidimensional aspect of poverty, even when composite measures are used, as it does not capture each dimension-specific deprivation. This paper proposes a multidimensional targeting approach to identifying beneficiaries that explicitly take in consideration the multiple objectives of the CCTs and the multiple deprivations of the poor household. Results indicate that the proposed multidimensional targeting methodology significantly improves the selection of households with children who are most deprived in the dimensions often relevant to CCTs. In the case of Mexico’s <i>Oportunidades</i>, ex-ante evaluation results indicate that the multidimensional identification of beneficiaries increases the welfare impact of transfers compared to alternative targeting models.</p>
spellingShingle Azevedo, V
Robles, M
Multidimensional targeting : identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs
title Multidimensional targeting : identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs
title_full Multidimensional targeting : identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs
title_fullStr Multidimensional targeting : identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs
title_full_unstemmed Multidimensional targeting : identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs
title_short Multidimensional targeting : identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs
title_sort multidimensional targeting identifying beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs
work_keys_str_mv AT azevedov multidimensionaltargetingidentifyingbeneficiariesofconditionalcashtransferprograms
AT roblesm multidimensionaltargetingidentifyingbeneficiariesofconditionalcashtransferprograms