Testing Paternalism: Cash versus In-Kind Transfers

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cunha, Jesse M.
• 署名单位: United States Department of Defense; United States Navy; Naval Postgraduate School
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.6.2.195
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 195-230
• 关键词: transfer programs; food-consumption; public provision; private goods; IMPACT; nutrition; Mexico; redistribution; ECONOMICS; progresa

摘要

Welfare programs are often implemented in-kind to promote outcomes that might not be realized under cash transfers. This paper tests whether such paternalistically motivated transfers are justified compared to cash, using a randomized controlled trial of Mexico's food assistance program. In relation to total food consumption, the in-kind transfer was infra-marginal and nondistorting. However, the transfer contained ten food items, and there was large variation in the extent to which individual foods were extra-marginal and distorting. Small differences in the nutritional intake of women and children under in-kind transfers did not lead to meaningful differential improvements in health outcomes compared to cash.