Progressively targeted cash transfers remain the dominant policy response to chronic poverty in developing countries. But are there alternative social protection policies that might have larger poverty impacts over time for the same public expenditure? To explore this question, this paper...

Progressively targeted cash transfers remain the dominant policy response to chronic poverty in developing countries. But are there alternative social protection policies that might have larger poverty impacts over time for the same public expenditure? To explore this question, this paper...

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction / Christopher B. Barrett, Michael R. Carter, and Jean- Paul Chavas -- I. Nutrition, Health, and Human Capital Formation -- 1. Human Capital and Shocks: Evidence on Education, Health, and Nutrition / Elizabeth Frankenberg and Duncan Thomas --...

This paper demonstrates that there are potentially large returns to social protection policy that stakes out a productive safety net below the vulnerable and keeps them from slipping into a poverty trap. Much of the value of the productive safety net comes from mitigating the ex ante effects of...