 |
In collaboration with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) we experimentally varied the size, frequency and timing of unconditional cash transfers delivered to women in ultra-poor households in northwest Nigeria. Women were randomly assigned to receive the same total cash amount in 15 monthly installments or 5 quarterly installments. The cash transfers increased women's work, particularly, in their own businesses where they spent more on business inputs and increased their business profits. Cash transfers also had an immediate positive impact on household consumption, food security, animal investments and female well-being compared to the control group who did not receive a cash transfer. Quarterly transfers cost half as much as monthly transfers for the implementer to administer, but we found no statistically significant differences in treatment effects. In addition, the women's ability to control the cash transfers is the same under a quarterly payment scheme and monthly payment scheme. We find the proportion of the cash retained by the female recipient herself wasn't affected by the structure of the transfer, except for a small proportion of households where the quarterly recipients transferred slightly more to their husbands in the event that he temporarily migrated for work. Our results suggest that since less-frequent and larger-value transfers are just as effective as more frequent transfers, program implementers could significantly lower the cost of delivering cash transfers by transitioning to less-frequent transfers. This could potentially free up resources to increase the number of recipients or the size of the transfers.
