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Social assistance and poverty reduction in Moldova, 2001-2004 an impact evaluation

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  • Verme, Paolo

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact of social assistance benefits on household welfare in Moldova. Ignoring standard issues of impact evaluations such as selection bias, behavioral responses, unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity, an incidence analysis suggests that increased spending on social assistance enhances the probability of moving out of poverty and reduces the probability of moving into poverty. However, double difference estimates (based on a mimicked randomized experiment) and parametric estimates (based on panel data) indicate that social benefits have not contributed to improve household welfare or reduce poverty. Double difference estimates point to a negativeimpact on welfare. Parametric estimates do not yield any consistent significant impact on welfare or poverty. The author concludes that the growth in population coverage and expenditure on cash benefits that characterized social assistance policies in recent years has not resulted in a significant improvement in welfare, all other factors being equal.

Suggested Citation

  • Verme, Paolo, 2008. "Social assistance and poverty reduction in Moldova, 2001-2004 an impact evaluation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4658, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4658
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Dominic Richardson & UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, 2018. "Key Findings on Families, Family Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals: Synthesis Report," Papers inorer948, Innocenti Research Report.
    2. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. MONEE project, 2009. "Innocenti Social Monitor 2009. Child Well-being at a Crossroads: Evolving challenges in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States," Papers insomo562, Innocenti Social Monitor.
    3. Jacques Silber & Paolo Verme, 2009. "Distributional change, reference groups and the measurement of relative deprivation," Working Papers 136, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Lucia Mangiavacchi & Paolo Verme, 2009. "Evaluating Pro-poor Transfers When Targeting is Weak: The Albanian Ndihma Ekonomike Program Revisited," Working Papers - Economics wp2009_08.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.

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    Keywords

    Safety Nets and Transfers; Rural Poverty Reduction; Services&Transfers to Poor; Economic Theory&Research;
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