Intra-Household Behavioral Responses to Cash Transfer Programs: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Considering two-parent households with children, this study investigates the behavioral responses of men and women to a cash transfer program in Uruguay – Asignaciones Familiares-Plan de Equidad (AFAM-PE). We examine its effect on labor market responses, marital dissolution, and the decision-making process regarding the use of money. The assignment mechanism to the AFAM-PE exogenously alters the distribution of non-labor income across applicant households by targeting the monetary transfer (usually) to the female spouse. Our identification strategy exploits both the female targeting and a discontinuity in eligibility for enrollment into the program. Based on a regression discontinuity design and on a follow-up survey matched with program’s administrative records, this study finds that the program has significant negative effects on the formality choice of women at the eligibility cut-off. These responses seem to be associated with a lower rate of moving from unregistered jobs to formality. We also find suggestive evidence that the program results in women taking greater (perceived) responsibility for decisions in specific spheres of household expenditures. This study, represents one of the first efforts to analyze the distributional effects of CCT programs on different couples members’ behavioral responses. It offers relevant considerations for the ongoing debate about the impacts of these kind of programs on women’s agency in developing countries, suggesting the need to discuss new designs for social assistance that reduce discouraging effects on formality.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.024 | 0.062 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".