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Cash Transfers for School‐Age Children in African Countries: Simulation of Impacts on Poverty and School Attendance
Author(s) -
Kakwani Nanak,
Soares Fabio,
Son Hyun H.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
development policy review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.671
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1467-7679
pISSN - 0950-6764
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7679.2006.00347.x
Subject(s) - poverty , cash transfers , attendance , economics , cash , demographic economics , low income , business , labour economics , economic growth , finance
Drawing on data from 15 African countries, simulation models suggest that to reduce the poverty headcount ratio by increasing incomes among poor households, cash transfers would have to be sizeable – in the range of 2–8% of GDP. Even then, an increase in income, by itself, would not suffice to increase school attendance significantly. Higher impacts at lower cost could be achieved by making transfers targeted and conditional. However, the administrative costs of detailed targeting (e.g. by income) are known to be high. On the other hand, some broad measures, such as targeting rural children only, produce results almost as good as income‐linked targeting and, given their low administrative costs, are to be preferred.