The central governments of many developing countries have chosen to decentralize their anti-poverty programs, in the expectation that local agents are better informed about local needs. The paper shows that this potential advantage of decentralized eligibility criteria can come at a large cost,...

Governments often prohibit resale of the benefits-in-kind provided by antipoverty programs. Yet the personal gains from those benefits are likely to vary and to be known privately, so there can be gains to poor people from trading their assignments. We know very little about those gains. To help...