How Relevant is Targeting to the Success of an Antipoverty Program?

[摘要] Policy-oriented discussions often assumethat "better targeting" implies larger impacts onpoverty or more cost-effective interventions. The literatureon the economics of targeting warns against that assumption,but evidence has been scarce. The paper begins with acritical review of the strengths and weaknesses of thetargeting measures found in practice. It then exploits anunusually large micro data set for China to estimateaggregate and local-level poverty impacts of thecountry's main urban antipoverty program. Standardmeasures of targeting are found to be uninformative, or evendeceptive, about impacts on poverty and cost-effectivenessin reducing poverty. In program design and evaluation, itwould be better to focus directly on the program'soutcomes for poor people than to rely on prevailing measuresof targeting.

[发布日期] 2007-11-01 [发布机构] World Bank, Washington, DC

[学科分类] 社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

[关键词] ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS;ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES;ANTIPOVERTY PROGRAM;ANTIPOVERTY PROGRAMS;CASH TRANSFERS