How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?

How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?

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Policy-oriented discussions often assume that "better targeting" implies larger impacts on poverty or more cost-effective interventions for fighting poverty. The literature on the economics of targeting warns against that assumption, but evidence has been scarce and the lessons from the literature have often been ignored by practitioners. This paper shows that standard measures of targeting performance are uninformative or even deceptive about the impacts on poverty, and cost-effectiveness in reducing poverty, of a large cash transfer program in China. The results suggest that in program design and evaluation, it would be better to focus directly on the program's outcomes for poor people than to rely on prevailing measures of targeting.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ravallion, Martin
Format: Journal Article biblioteca
Published: World Bank 2009-09-30
Subjects:administrative costs, cash transfers, economic growth, household income, income, inequality, new poor, political economy, political economy of targeting, political support, poor, poverty gap index, poverty measures, poverty reduction, public spending, social security, squared poverty gap index, targeted transfers, targeting, targeting mechanisms,
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4429
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spelling dig-okr-1098644292021-04-23T14:02:17Z How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program? Ravallion, Martin administrative costs, cash transfers, economic growth, household income, income, inequality, new poor, political economy, political economy of targeting, political support, poor, poverty gap index, poverty measures, poverty reduction, public spending, social security, squared poverty gap index, targeted transfers, targeting, targeting mechanisms Policy-oriented discussions often assume that "better targeting" implies larger impacts on poverty or more cost-effective interventions for fighting poverty. The literature on the economics of targeting warns against that assumption, but evidence has been scarce and the lessons from the literature have often been ignored by practitioners. This paper shows that standard measures of targeting performance are uninformative or even deceptive about the impacts on poverty, and cost-effectiveness in reducing poverty, of a large cash transfer program in China. The results suggest that in program design and evaluation, it would be better to focus directly on the program's outcomes for poor people than to rely on prevailing measures of targeting. 2012-03-30T07:12:34Z 2012-03-30T07:12:34Z 2009-09-30 Journal Article World Bank Research Observer 1564-6971 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4429 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank Journal Article East Asia and Pacific China
institution Banco Mundial
collection DSpace
country Estados Unidos
countrycode US
component Bibliográfico
access En linea
databasecode dig-okr
tag biblioteca
region America del Norte
libraryname Biblioteca del Banco Mundial
topic administrative costs, cash transfers, economic growth, household income, income, inequality, new poor, political economy, political economy of targeting, political support, poor, poverty gap index, poverty measures, poverty reduction, public spending, social security, squared poverty gap index, targeted transfers, targeting, targeting mechanisms
administrative costs, cash transfers, economic growth, household income, income, inequality, new poor, political economy, political economy of targeting, political support, poor, poverty gap index, poverty measures, poverty reduction, public spending, social security, squared poverty gap index, targeted transfers, targeting, targeting mechanisms
spellingShingle administrative costs, cash transfers, economic growth, household income, income, inequality, new poor, political economy, political economy of targeting, political support, poor, poverty gap index, poverty measures, poverty reduction, public spending, social security, squared poverty gap index, targeted transfers, targeting, targeting mechanisms
administrative costs, cash transfers, economic growth, household income, income, inequality, new poor, political economy, political economy of targeting, political support, poor, poverty gap index, poverty measures, poverty reduction, public spending, social security, squared poverty gap index, targeted transfers, targeting, targeting mechanisms
Ravallion, Martin
How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?
description Policy-oriented discussions often assume that "better targeting" implies larger impacts on poverty or more cost-effective interventions for fighting poverty. The literature on the economics of targeting warns against that assumption, but evidence has been scarce and the lessons from the literature have often been ignored by practitioners. This paper shows that standard measures of targeting performance are uninformative or even deceptive about the impacts on poverty, and cost-effectiveness in reducing poverty, of a large cash transfer program in China. The results suggest that in program design and evaluation, it would be better to focus directly on the program's outcomes for poor people than to rely on prevailing measures of targeting.
format Journal Article
topic_facet administrative costs, cash transfers, economic growth, household income, income, inequality, new poor, political economy, political economy of targeting, political support, poor, poverty gap index, poverty measures, poverty reduction, public spending, social security, squared poverty gap index, targeted transfers, targeting, targeting mechanisms
author Ravallion, Martin
author_facet Ravallion, Martin
author_sort Ravallion, Martin
title How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?
title_short How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?
title_full How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?
title_fullStr How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?
title_full_unstemmed How Relevant Is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?
title_sort how relevant is targeting to the success of an antipoverty program?
publisher World Bank
publishDate 2009-09-30
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4429
work_keys_str_mv AT ravallionmartin howrelevantistargetingtothesuccessofanantipovertyprogram
_version_ 1756571502876033024

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