IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevef/v9y2017i4p419-442.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cash transfer programmes, weather shocks and household welfare: evidence from a randomised experiment in Zambia

Author

Listed:
  • Solomon Asfaw
  • Alessandro Carraro
  • Benjamin Davis
  • Sudhanshu Handa
  • David Seidenfeld

Abstract

We assess the role of social cash transfer programmes against the negative effect of weather risk on rural households’ welfare using experimental impact evaluation data from Zambia. We find strong evidence that cash transfer has a mitigating role against the negative effects of weather shocks. Our results in fact highlight how important social cash transfer is for households lying in the bottom quantile of consumption and food security distributions in moderating the negative effect of weather shock. Integrating weather risk and social protection tools into a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy should therefore be of primary interest for policymakers.

Suggested Citation

  • Solomon Asfaw & Alessandro Carraro & Benjamin Davis & Sudhanshu Handa & David Seidenfeld, 2017. "Cash transfer programmes, weather shocks and household welfare: evidence from a randomised experiment in Zambia," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 419-442, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevef:v:9:y:2017:i:4:p:419-442
    DOI: 10.1080/19439342.2017.1377751
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/19439342.2017.1377751
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/19439342.2017.1377751?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adan Guyo Shibia, 2024. "Households’ coping mechanisms with droughts and floods using finance, non-finance and the social safety net measures: evidence from Kenya," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(9), pages 22237-22259, September.
    2. Stoeffler, Quentin & Patrick, Premand, 2018. "Do cash transfer increase poor household resilience? Evidence from rural Niger," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274216, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Hare Krisna Kundo & Martin Brueckner & Rochelle Spencer & John Davis, 2021. "Mainstreaming climate adaptation into social protection: The issues yet to be addressed," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(6), pages 953-974, August.
    4. Biyase, Mduduzi, 2018. "Assessing the impact of social grants on household welfare using morning after simulation and PSM approach," MPRA Paper 84477, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Premand, Patrick & Stoeffler, Quentin, 2022. "Cash transfers, climatic shocks and resilience in the Sahel," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    6. Sébastien Mary, 2022. "A replication note on humanitarian aid and violence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 1465-1494, March.
    7. Katrin Gasior & Silvia Navarro & Jukka Pirttilä & Mari Kangasniemi, 2022. "Distributional impacts of agricultural policies in Zambia: A microsimulation approach," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-143, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Mary, Sebastien, 2022. "Dams mitigate the effect of rainfall shocks on Hindus-Muslims riots," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    9. Scognamillo, Antonio & Sitko, Nicholas J., 2021. "Leveraging social protection to advance climate-smart agriculture: An empirical analysis of the impacts of Malawi’s Social Action Fund (MASAF) on farmers’ adoption decisions and welfare outcomes," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    10. López Barrera, Emiliano & Lowenberg-DeBoer, James M., 2018. "Development and Inclusive Businesses in Colombia? A Case Study From The Oil Palm Supply in the Orinoquía," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274482, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    11. repec:ags:aaea22:335448 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Sebastien Mary & Kyle Craven & Avraham Stoler & Sarah Shafiq, 2023. "Revisiting the Impact of Dams on Malaria and Agriculture," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-19, June.
    13. Yonas T. Bahta & Joseph P. Musara, 2022. "Quantifying the Impact of COVID-19 Relief Vouchers Schemes on Food Security: Empirical Evidence Insights from South Africa," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, August.
    14. Ghulam Mustafa, 2022. "Weather Shocks, Unconditional Cash Transfers and Household Food Outcomes," PIDE-Working Papers 2022:8, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    15. Arndt, Channing & Davies, Rob & Gabriel, Sherwin & Harris, Laurence & Makrelov, Konstantin & Robinson, Sherman & Levy, Stephanie & Simbanegavi, Witness & van Seventer, Dirk & Anderson, Lillian, 2020. "Covid-19 lockdowns, income distribution, and food security: an analysis for South Africa," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105814, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Molina, Teresa & Cho, Yoon Y., 2024. "The Importance of Existing Social Protection Programs for Mental Health in Pandemic Times," IZA Discussion Papers 16737, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Nawaz, Saima & Iqbal, Nasir, 2021. "How cash transfers program affects environmental poverty among ultra-poor? Insights from the BISP in Pakistan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PB).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joaquín Bernal-Ramírez & Jair Ojeda-Joya & Camila Agudelo-Rivera & Felipe Clavijo-Ramírez & Carolina Durana-Ángel & Clark Granger-Castaño & Daniel Osorio-Rodríguez & Daniel Parra-Amado & José Pulido &, 2022. "Impacto macroeconómico del cambio climático en Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, issue 102, pages 1-62, July.
    2. Cécile Couharde & Rémi Generoso, 2015. "Hydro-climatic thresholds and economic growth reversals in developing countries: an empirical investigation," EconomiX Working Papers 2015-26, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    3. Mérel, Pierre & Paroissien, Emmanuel & Gammans, Matthew, 2024. "Sufficient statistics for climate change counterfactuals," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    4. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell & Trinh, Trong-Anh, 2022. "Energy poverty, temperature and climate change," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    5. Wenju Cai & Yi Liu & Xiaopei Lin & Ziguang Li & Ying Zhang & David Newth, 2024. "Nonlinear country-heterogenous impact of the Indian Ocean Dipole on global economies," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Arteaga, Julián & de Roux, Nicolás & Gáfaro, Margarita & Ibáñez, Ana María & Pellegrina, Heitor, 2025. "Farm Size Distribution, Weather Shocks, and Agricultural Productivity," Documentos CEDE 21308, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    7. Xi Chen & Chih Ming Tan & Xiaobo Zhang & Xin Zhang, 2020. "The effects of prenatal exposure to temperature extremes on birth outcomes: the case of China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1263-1302, October.
    8. Mehmet Balcilar & Elie Bouri & Rangan Gupta & Christian Pierdzioch, 2021. "El Niño, La Niña, and the Forecastability of the Realized Variance of Heating Oil Price Movements," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-23, July.
    9. Hsing-Hsiang Huang & Michael R. Moore, 2018. "Farming under Weather Risk: Adaptation, Moral Hazard, and Selection on Moral Hazard," NBER Chapters, in: Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior, pages 77-124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Austin L. Wright, 2016. "Economic Shocks and Rebel," HiCN Working Papers 232, Households in Conflict Network.
    11. Zhang, Shaohui & Guo, Qinxin & Smyth, Russell & Yao, Yao, 2022. "Extreme temperatures and residential electricity consumption: Evidence from Chinese households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    12. Patrycja Klusak & Matthew Agarwala & Matt Burke & Moritz Kraemer & Kamiar Mohaddes, 2023. "Rising Temperatures, Falling Ratings: The Effect of Climate Change on Sovereign Creditworthiness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(12), pages 7468-7491, December.
    13. Andrea Bastianin & Alessandro Lanza & Matteo Manera, 2018. "Economic impacts of El Niño southern oscillation: evidence from the Colombian coffee market," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(5), pages 623-633, September.
    14. Lane, Philip R., 2019. "Climate Change and the Irish Financial System," Economic Letters 1/EL/19, Central Bank of Ireland.
    15. Checo, Ariadne & Mejía, Mariam & Ramírez, Francisco A., 2017. "El rol de los regímenes de precipitaciones sobre la dinámica de precios y actividad del sector agropecuario de la República Dominicana durante el período 2000-2016 [The role of rainfall regimes on ," MPRA Paper 80301, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Joshua Graff Zivin & Solomon M. Hsiang & Matthew Neidell, 2018. "Temperature and Human Capital in the Short and Long Run," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(1), pages 77-105.
    17. François Cohen & Matthieu Glachant & Magnus Söderberg, 2017. "The cost of adapting to climate change: evidence from the US residential sector," Working Papers hal-01695171, HAL.
    18. Sedova, Barbora & Kalkuhl, Matthias, 2020. "Who are the climate migrants and where do they go? Evidence from rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    19. Brian C. Thiede & Abbie Robinson & Clark Gray, 2024. "Climatic Variability and Internal Migration in Asia: Evidence from Big Microdata," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 50(2), pages 513-540, June.
    20. Harish, Santosh & Singh, Nishmeet & Tongia, Rahul, 2020. "Impact of temperature on electricity demand: Evidence from Delhi and Indian states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jdevef:v:9:y:2017:i:4:p:419-442. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJDE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.