Cash Transfer Evaluation
Cash transfer evaluation is the body of impact-evaluation practice used to measure the effects of giving money directly to poor households — conditional on behaviours such as school enrolment and clinic visits (CCTs) or unconditional (UCTs) — on consumption, schooling, nutrition, health, and broader welfare. Pioneered by Mexico's PROGRESA/Oportunidades programme in the late 1990s, which built a randomised phase-in into its rollout, the field has produced some of the most influential causal evidence in development economics and now spans dozens of countries and hundreds of studies.
Read the full method
Sign in with a free account to read this section.
Method map
The neighbourhood of related methods — select a node to explore.
Sources
- Fiszbein, A., & Schady, N. (2009). Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty. World Bank Policy Research Report. Washington, DC: World Bank. ISBN: 9780821373521
- Baird, S., McIntosh, C., & Özler, B. (2011). Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(4), 1709–1753. DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjr032 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Impact Evaluation of Cash Transfer Programmes. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/development-studies/cash-transfer-evaluation
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- Microfinance Impact AssessmentDevelopment Studies↔ compare
- Poverty Probability IndexDevelopment Studies↔ compare
- Randomized Evaluation in DevelopmentDevelopment Studies↔ compare
- Theory-Based Impact EvaluationDevelopment Studies↔ compare