Comments: “Finding the Poor…” by Rema Hanna

Comments: “Finding the Poor…” by Rema Hanna
Francisco A. Gallego
PUC-Chile and J-PAL
July 2013
A B D U L
L A T I F
J A M E E L
P O V E R T Y
A C T I O N
L A B
1
Map
• Main results
– Methods
– Concept of Poverty/Welfare
– The challenges ahead
• Rigorous evaluations: a great example!
– Government + Academia
– Doable!
• The Poor and Arístides Torche (QEPD)
Results 1
• Targeting to the poor is not easy (relevant for Chile)
• Exclusion and inclusion errors
• Different methods
• PMT
• Community involvement
• Self-selection
• Combinations
• Main results:
• PMT vs Community:
• Different results but due to different concepts of poverty
• PMT vs. self-selection:
• Self-selection: better at finding the very poor and
3
cheaper!
Results 2
• PMT vs. community:
• People much happier and satisfied when involved in
targeting (without big difference in “objective” outcomes)
• Differences
• What is poverty?
• Who is poor? Some information advantages
• This is important and not new in J-PAL:
• Sometimes interventions do not produce changes in
“objective” outcomes but make people much more
happier
• Duflo et al. (Happines on Tap, Morocco), Galiani et al.
(TECHO, Latin America), Gallego et al. (Dental Health,
Chile)
4
Results 3
• Exclusion errors: The very poor!
• 40% of them are not receiving benefits
• What to do? New treatments?
• Information
• People (NGOs, public sector) finding them?
• Combination of treatments for different people/groups/areas
• Relevant for Chile:
• Strict cutoffs vs. smooth rules Different sets of policies
• Different conditionalities
5
Observable Characteristics
Rigorous Evaluations
• Hard question and we do not know!!
• Several reasonable hypotheses
• Joint venture: Government (International Organizations) and Academia
• What to do?
• Pilots: Try different alternatives and learn
• Improve and/or Scale-up
• They did this in Indonesia!! (and also in Mexico)
• Project1 took <1 year from baseline to follow up…
• Our little example: Ingreso Ético Familiar.
• No rigorous ex-ante evaluation
• A lot of doubts about their potential impacts
• Legislative discussion: ~2 years…
• Why not in Chile??
• SERNAM, MINEDUC, FOSIS, TECHO, Mi Parque, Belen Educa, Fundación
CAP, etc. etc.
7
The Concept of Poverty and A. Torche
• Processes vs Outcomes
• “Una alternativa es partir del camino inverso y buscar
aquello de que se dispone y sobre esa base construir
un nuevo esquema, incorporando desde la partida a
los beneficiarios en la construcción de su propio
destino. “ (Torche, 2000)
• Direct application to the discussion today…
8