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Measuring and Changing Control: Women's Empowerment and Targeted Transfers

Author

Listed:
  • Ingvild Almås

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Stockholm University)

  • Alex Armand

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Nova School of Business and Economics)

  • Orazio Attanasio

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Yale University)

  • Pedro Carneiro

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London)

Abstract

This paper studies how targeted cash transfers to women a ffect their empowerment. We use a novel identi cation strategy to measure women's willingness to pay to receive cash transfers instead of their partner receiving it. We apply this among women living in poor households in urban Macedonia. We match experimental data with a unique policy intervention (CCT) in Macedonia o ffering poor households cash transfers conditional on having their children attending secondary school. The program randomized whether the transfer was off ered to household heads or mothers at municipality level, providing us with an exogenous source of variation in (off ered) transfers. We show that women who were o ffered the transfer reveal a lower willingness to pay, and we show that this is in line with theoretical predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Ingvild Almås & Alex Armand & Orazio Attanasio & Pedro Carneiro, 2016. "Measuring and Changing Control: Women's Empowerment and Targeted Transfers," CeMMAP working papers CWP08/16, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:cemmap:08/16
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esther Duflo, 2012. "Women Empowerment and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1051-1079, December.
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    4. P.-A. Chiappori & I. Ekeland, 2009. "The Microeconomics of Efficient Group Behavior: Identification," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 763-799, May.
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    7. Ariel Fiszbein & Norbert Schady & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Margaret Grosh & Niall Keleher & Pedro Olinto & Emmanuel Skoufias, 2009. "Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2597.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; empowerment; cash transfers; intra-household;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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