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Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

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Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#121

Post by JulianMorrison »

ekianjo wrote: post #28
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that different from the situation we have here in America. A lot of people are working low-wage dead-end jobs because they their kids or siblings need to eat. With only a little bit of extra money those people could stop working their jobs, learn new skills, and get better jobs.

People are not starving in America.Please visit poor countries before drawing parrallels.

At what point does it count as starving? When they don't eat for a week at the end of the month so they can make rent? When they have chronic malnourishment? When they manage to live by visiting food banks or soup kitchens? When they dumpster-dive for discarded food? All this happens in America.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#122

Post by e12e »

code_duck wrote: post #117
e12e wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Any data to back that up? (On a side note, a " large bag of cocaine" sounds like a business investment, investing in the highest return commodity available to the investor... not that I condone it, but it is somewhat different from what I assume you intended, namely buying recreational drugs for personal use rather than providing for one's children).

I need data to back up my vague assertion that 'some' people but drugs rather than care for their children?

Well, "data" might not have been the best choice of words. I was thinking back to the times I've seen, interacted with, or heard second-hand of drug addicts (or read studies) -- and I couldn't think of any cases where the statement hold true. The only context I could see it as true, was as an (unfounded) prejudice.

So, I was really just wondering if you've ever had any first or second-hand indication that your assertion isn't just bullshit.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#123

Post by mertd »

davidwoof1 wrote: post #110
brownbat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context is definitely relevant. In 1832, Georgia held a lottery to allocate all of its unclaimed land. Almost everyone in the state participated. The value of each parcel of land was immense, life-changing for most of the people in the lottery. Families who won the lottery reverted to the mean in a generation or two: http://home.uchicago.edu/~bleakley/Bleakley_Ferrie_Intergen.... (To be fair, educational attainment a…

Umm, I seriously doubt that "almost everyone" in the state of Georgia in 1832 was eligble to participate in this lottery. Families who won the lottery reverted to the mean in a generation or two A small event known in the US as the Civil War, which completely decimated the economy of Georgia, just might have had something to do with this.

Almost everyone was indeed eligible. Freakonomics did an episode on it, and there is a study on this affair since it was pretty well documented.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#124

Post by Terretta »

vanderZwan wrote: post #108
willvarfar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would just giving them money combat corruption?

I might step on a few people's politically correct toes for saying this, but based on my experience with traveling through Africa I'd say that the richer people think you are, the more corruption you have to deal with, and that the "whiter" you look, the richer people presume you are.

This effect is countered by speaking with a local accent.

My experience living in central Africa is that "whiteness" of a "cochon gratté" has nothing to do with skin color.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#125

Post by repiret »

mertd wrote: post #123
davidwoof1 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, I seriously doubt that "almost everyone" in the state of Georgia in 1832 was eligble to participate in this lottery. Families who won the lottery reverted to the mean in a generation or two A small event known in the US as the Civil War, which completely decimated the economy of Georgia, just might have had something to do with this.

Almost everyone was indeed eligible. Freakonomics did an episode on it, and there is a study on this affair since it was pretty well documented.

From the abstract of the article:

"...which had nearly universal participation among adult white males."

White males is a lot less than almost everyone. Its not even most people.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#126

Post by karlmdavis »

waps wrote: post #45
karlmdavis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't this: > The aggregate effect of free money is what will determine the outcome. And this: > Not what exceptional individuals might achieve with it, but what a lazy drunkard would achieve with it matters) Contradict each other? The "aggregate effect" = "lazy drunkards" + the effect of "exceptional individuals" + the effect of everyone else. So it really isn't the lazy drunkards that matter; it's the overall effec…

You're right. That was wrong. I obviously meant it's the effect of A plus B. It would depend on the amount of "bottom feeders". That's a bad way to define it though, "non-productives" might be better, since it would include pensioners, children, students (including people who go back to studying if this program is introduced, but are older than 0-24 years), really ill people, ... mostly not people I'd define as botto…

> It would depend on the amount of "bottom feeders". That's a bad way to define it though, "non-productives" might be better, since it would include pensioners, children, students (including people who go back to studying if this program is introduced, but are older than 0-24 years), really ill people, ... mostly not people I'd define as bottom feeders.

You're absolutely right, thanks for the correction.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#127

Post by dragonwriter »

nostromo wrote: post #31
hristov wrote: post #27

The problem with cash grants is something that does not show up when there is a Columbia professor watching things. And that is that the money gets stolen. Many poor countries suffer from corrupt callous and cruel leadership. And this means that the people in power tend to steal from the poor. Thus, if some organization tries to give cash to the poor there is a high likelihood that the money will be stolen and sent t…

Don't you have it exactly backwards? I've heard (from people like Andrew Mwenda) that say that Western aid to African governments ends up not helping the citizenry and just props up bad governments. Aid that completely bypasses corrupt governments and goes directly to citizens seems to be less likely to be stolen by middlemen. If you look at Give Directly ( http://www.givedirectly.org/faqs.php ) they send cash direct…

> Aid that completely bypasses corrupt governments and goes directly to citizens seems to be less likely to be stolen by middlemen.

Pretty much by definition it is less likely to be stolen by middlemen, since anyone stealing aid that goes directly to individuals without going through middlemen is not a middleman.

Whether it is less likely to be stolen -- or even whether it is less likely to be stolen by the government -- is a completely different story.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#128

Post by vanderZwan »

Terretta wrote: post #124
vanderZwan wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might step on a few people's politically correct toes for saying this, but based on my experience with traveling through Africa I'd say that the richer people think you are, the more corruption you have to deal with, and that the "whiter" you look, the richer people presume you are.

This effect is countered by speaking with a local accent. My experience living in central Africa is that "whiteness" of a "cochon gratté" has nothing to do with skin color.

Yes, that also fits my experience in Ghana.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#129

Post by twotwotwo »

vanderZwan wrote: post #107
twotwotwo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More from one of cjbprime's sources: GiveWell does a lot of evaluation of charities, trying to find where an individual donor's dollar can make the most difference. They hold donations to GiveDirectly to a pretty high standard, comparing it against stuff like antimalarial bednets and deworming, and think it comes out looking alright. In addition to cjbprime's link, they've written: 1) Cash transfers intervention repo…

> They hold donations to GiveDirectly to a pretty high standard, comparing it against stuff like antimalarial bednets and deworming, and think it comes out looking alright. There's this line of reasoning (coming from African economists that have spoken out against the latter two forms of aid[1]) that if you give the poor money, they can spend it on antimalarial bednets and deworming themselves, which is is effectivel…

I think there are a couple of general reasons bednets or deworming (and vaccines) are still good things to deliver via aid program rather than sell, without taking away from the awesomeness of GiveDirectly. (And I know you're saying you know such reasons might exist, but I think it's worthwhile to go into them:)

One is logistics: a program to reach everybody unlocks some economies of scale. Much of the cost of these programs is just getting supplies and people to all of these remote villages with impassable roads, the occasional corrupt official or militia, etc.[1] Some of that is effectively fixed cost, and doesn't vary much whether you have two boxes of deworming pills in the back of your truck or 20. The cost per person is lower if you can amortize those fixed costs across everyone.

The other is that sometimes active encouragement is worth it. Even rich countries have policies to try and get folks to vaccinate and for other health goals like getting people off cigarettes or fighting obesity. In poor countries there are two further reasons a push could help: there's not enough accurate, trusted medical info (not even high school bio for everyone; that's part of how "traditional healers" survive), and the cost of a vaccine feels a lot higher.[2]

All that said, I get the frustration that there are so many big problems aid like this _doesn't_ directly help with. There's partly just a problem of scale--you need a lot more resources (whether investment or aid or what) to deal with the lack of infrastructure, etc. But I do think in the meantime, the science and to some extent plain old arithmetic indicate that basic health programs are still doing a ton of good.

[1] Digression, but if you want to read about what it's like to take the long way to a remote old tin mining town in the DRC, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1851689656/ is amazing

[2] Same thing was said, perhaps better, by http://www.quora.com/Development-Practice/Are-bednets-really...

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#130

Post by brownbat »

davidwoof1 wrote: post #110
brownbat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context is definitely relevant. In 1832, Georgia held a lottery to allocate all of its unclaimed land. Almost everyone in the state participated. The value of each parcel of land was immense, life-changing for most of the people in the lottery. Families who won the lottery reverted to the mean in a generation or two: http://home.uchicago.edu/~bleakley/Bleakley_Ferrie_Intergen.... (To be fair, educational attainment a…

Umm, I seriously doubt that "almost everyone" in the state of Georgia in 1832 was eligble to participate in this lottery. Families who won the lottery reverted to the mean in a generation or two A small event known in the US as the Civil War, which completely decimated the economy of Georgia, just might have had something to do with this.

> Umm, I seriously doubt that "almost everyone" in the state of Georgia in 1832

Touche. My point was that participation was extensive and varied. It remains to be seen whether or not this effect holds for women or minorities, but even if it didn't, that would only support my main point: context matters.

> A small event known in the US as the Civil War... just might have had something to do with this.

The authors address the Civil War in the piece. It would indeed have been a weird oversight for economic historians studying the pre-war South if they hadn't, if that just never occurred to them as relevant.

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