Centralised targeting registries are increasingly used to allocate social assistance benefits in developing countries. This paper provides the first attempt to identify the relative importance of two key design issues for targeting accuracy: (1) which households to survey for inclusion in the...

Targeted cash transfer programs have been an important policy tool in developing countries. This paper considers (i) how the timing of transfers affects household expenditure and labor supply responses, and (ii) how household expectations shape our interpretation of those responses. We study...

Prior to the Asian financial crisis, social protection in Indonesia was largely based on informal arrangements. When the country sank into a deep social and economic crisis in 1998, the government had no alternative but to create new, more formal social safety nets explicitly aimed at helping...