Conditional cash transfers, civil conflict and insurgent influence: Experimental evidence from the Philippines

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Crost, Benjamin; Felter, Joseph H.; Johnston, Patrick B.
• 署名单位: Stanford University; RAND Corporation
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2015.08.005
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 171-182
• 关键词: Conditional cash transfers; civil conflict; insurgency; Randomized control trial; Philippines

摘要

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are an increasingly popular tool for reducing poverty in conflict-affected areas. Despite their growing popularity, there is limited evidence on how CCT programs affect conflict and theoretical predictions are ambiguous. We estimate the effect of conditional cash transfers on civil conflict in the Philippines by exploiting an experiment that randomly assigned eligibility for a CCT program at the village level. We find that cash transfers caused a substantial decrease in conflict-related incidents in treatment villages relative to control villages in the first 9 months of the program. Using unique data on local insurgent influence, we also find that the program reduced insurgent influence in treated villages. An analysis of possible spillovers yields inconclusive results. While we find no statistical evidence of spillovers, we also cannot rule out that the village-level effect was due to displacement of insurgent activity from treatment to control villages. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.