Comparing Cash and Voucher Transfers in a Humanitarian Context : Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Aker, Jenny C.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: RISKS;    HOUSEHOLD SIZE;    HOUSEHOLD SURVEY;    VILLAGES;    STANDARD ERROR;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7469
RP-ID  :  WPS7469

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Despite recent calls in support of cashtransfers, there is little rigorous evidence of the relativeimpacts of cash versus in-kind transfers, especially inhumanitarian contexts, where a majority of such programstake place. This paper uses data from a randomizedexperiment in the Democratic Republic of Congo to assess therelative impacts and costs of equivalently valued cash andvoucher transfers. The voucher program distorted households’purchases along both the extensive and intensive margin ascompared with unconstrained cash households. Yet there wereno differences in food consumption or other measures ofwell-being, in part due to the fact that voucher householdswere able to resell part of what they purchased. As therewere no significant benefits to vouchers, cash transferswere the more cost effective modality for both theimplementing agency and program recipients in this context.