ERF 26th Annual Conference
Cash Transfers and Consumption of the Poor: Evidence from a Large-scale Program in Iran
No.
ERF26_252
Publisher
ERF
Date
August, 2020
Topic
H. Public Economics
I. Health, Education, and Welfare
How the poor spend their cash transfers and whether such transfers enable them to improve their nutrition are important questions for policy and research. In this paper, we provide evidence from a large-scale unconditional cash transfer program in Iran starting in 2011. The government made monthly payments for which all citizens were eligible as compensation for the removal of energy subsidies. We use panel data to estimate the casual effects of these transfers on consumption of the poor, with special focus on food and nutrition. To identify the causal impact, we use the variation in the timing of transfers and the size of the income shock measured by the ratio of cash transfers to a family's previous year expenditures. We find evidence that cash transfers increased the share of food in the consumption of the poor and their intake of foods rich in protein and vitamins.
Research Associates
Mohammad H. Mostafavi-Dehzooei
Assistant Professor, Georgia Southwestern State University
Research Fellows
Djavad Salehi-Isfahani
Professor, Virginia Tech University
Authors
Masoumeh Heshmatpour
Graduate Research Assistant, University of Minnesota