Better Together? Socioeconomic Impacts of Cash Transfers and Facilitated Couples' Planning

Talk by Daniel Maggio (Rutgers University) as part of the Research Seminar Series of the IOS Economics Department.

The receipt of large cash transfers by poor households creates a high-stakes resource allocation decision that has substantial economic implications and may lead to intra-household conflict.  We conducted a randomized trial in rural Liberia, analyzing the effects of a gender-targeted unconditional cash transfer implemented with and without a light-touch facilitated financial planning exercise that provides couples with an opportunity to plan their transfer spending before disbursement jointly.  We find that neither the transfer nor the transfer in conjunction with financial planning had meaningful effects on intrahousehold gender dynamics or intimate partner violence. However, there are large positive effects of the cash transfer on a wide range of economic outcomes, and the couples' planning intervention significantly amplified these positive effects on income, food security, and housing quality, possibly by encouraging households to direct more of their transfer to investment, rather than consumption. Designed to be low-cost and easily scalable, the light-touch joint financial planning intervention may be a useful tool to enhance the positive effects of cash transfers.