The effects of non-contributory social protection on adults labour decisions. Andrés Mideros (PhD fellow MGSoG /UNU-MERIT). Cathal O Donoghue (TEAGASC). Fifth Bolivian Conference on Development Economics. Santa Cruz, 14 th -15 th November 2013.
Outline: 1. Economic effects of non-contributory social protection 2. Labour supply: context matter 3. Ecuador and the Bono de Desarrollo Humano, BDH 4. Empirical model and results 5. Conclusions and future steps 2
Outline: 1. Economic effects of non-contributory social protection 2. Labour supply: context matter 3. Ecuador and the Bono de Desarrollo Humano, BDH 4. Empirical model and results 5. Conclusions and future steps 3
Arguments for expanding social protection: Human rights Effective to reduce income poverty and inequality It is affordable: at least a basic floor Human development: health, education Economic returns? 4
Rationale for economic analysis: Prejudices frequently prevail, difficult to fight Additional arguments are needed to move social protection up the national development agendas: Demonstrate value for money Analyze fiscal sustainability Prove cost-effectiveness, capture multidimensional effects Compare with alternative investments Develop economic argument for social protection: Costs AND benefits Short term AND long term Direct AND indirect Cherrier, Gassmann, Mideros and Mohnen (2013) 5
Non-contributory social protection and economic inclusion: Barrientos (2012): To alleviate credit constrains: savings, investments, credit Consumption and assets security Local economy effects Labour opportunities: increases labour supply Alderman and Yemtsov (2012): Building and protecting human capital, productive assets Enhancing community assets, infrastructure Stabilizer of aggregate demand, improving social cohesion, making reforms feasible 6
Social transfers Direct effects Poverty and inequality reduction Behavioural effects Education Human capital Disposable income Return Health Livelihoods and productive investments Physical capital Internal demand. Spillovers and local multiplier. Social cohesion. Labour supply Productivity Financing Based on Mideros et al (2012) Economic performance 7
Social transfers Direct effects Poverty and inequality reduction Behavioural effects Education Human capital Disposable income Return Health Livelihoods and productive investments Physical capital Internal demand. Spillovers and local multiplier. Social cohesion. Labour supply Productivity Financing Based on Mideros et al (2012) Economic performance 8
Outline: 1. Economic effects of non-contributory social protection 2. Labour supply: context matter 3. Ecuador and the Bono de Desarrollo Humano, BDH 4. Empirical model and results 5. Conclusions and future steps 9
Consumption E U0 U1 A social transfer (unconditional on labour) increases consumption at any labour/leisure level. B C1 C0 C F D Assuming that consumption and leisure are normal goods: more leisure (less work) and more consumption is preferred (income effect). There is no substitution effect if the social transfer does not affect real wage. L0 L1 A Leisure 10
Consumption U0 C3 E Cmin B H Leisure should not be considered a normal good if basic needs are not satisfied (poverty). C1 F D L3 A Leisure 11
Consumption U0 U1 Cmin E B Leisure should not be considered a normal good if basic needs are not satisfied (poverty). C1 F A D Leisure 12
Consumption U0 U1 Cmin C2 C1 G F Leisure should not be considered a normal good if basic needs are not satisfied (poverty). There exists constrains (credit, transportation costs, exclusion) which affects poor individuals. C0 C D L0 L1 A Leisure L2 13
Consumption U0 U1 C3 E Cmin H Leisure should not be considered a normal good if basic needs are not satisfied (poverty). C1 F There exists constrains (credit, transportation costs, exclusion) which affects poor individuals. C0 C D Social transfers may help people to solve those constrains, promoting labour. L3 L0 A D Leisure 14
International evidence: Posel et al (2006) South Africa: Higher probability of employment Covering migration costs and help to children. Mideros et al (2012) Cambodia: Reduction on un-paid labour (poor persons), but higher paid-labour (poor rural persons) Foguel and Barros (2010) Brazil: Positive effect on male labour particiation. Gonzales-Rozada and Llerena (2011) Ecuador: Financing work search. No disincentives has been found in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua y Honduras (Barrientos and Niño-Zarazua, 2010)(Alzúa et al, 2012) 15
Outline: 1. Economic effects of non-contributory social protection 2. Labour supply: context matter 3. Ecuador and the Bono de Desarrollo Humano, BDH 4. Empirical model and results 5. Conclusions and future steps 16
Data and programme information: Data is from the Urban and Rural National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment (ENEMDUR). The Bono de Desarrollo Humano, BDH (cash transfer) was introduced in 1998. To guarantee a minimum level of consumption. To incorporate conditionalities to invest on health and education. To protect old-age and disables persons. The BDH is targeted at poor households by a proxy-meanstest mechanism (Registro Social) updated in 2008. 17
What is(not) known about the BDH?: Number (thousands) of BDH recipients. 1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 Hogares Adultos Mayores Personas con Discapacidad 1,245 1,181 1,212 1,203 1,204 979 1,006 1,012 906 588 594 497 536 371 211 198 244 275 8 5 20 24 46 84 106 105 118 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Source: Ministerio de Inclusión Económica y Social (December 2005-2012 and January 2013) 18
What is(not) known about the BDH?: 19
Bono de Desarrollo Humano (BDH) Financing work search process. (Gonzales-Rozada and Llerena, 2011) Labour mobility Share of food on households expenditure: 2.9 4,3 percentage points higher (Schady and Rosero, 2008) Poverty (extreme poverty) headcount: 9,1% (20,8%) lower. Increases school expenditure (Edmonds and Schady, 2009) Food expenditure Income poverty headcount Education expenditure Underweight, stunting and wasting: 0,5; 0,3 y 0,5 standard deviations lower, respectively. (Buser et al, 2013) School enrolment 3.2 4.0 percentage points higher. (Schady and Araujo, 2008) Nutrition Economic returns? Cognitive achievements No effect on test scores (mathematics and language). (Ponce and Bedi, 2010) Long term memory: 17% of a standard deviations higher. (Paxson y Schady, 2010) 7 percentage points lower (Edmonds and Schady, 2009) Child labour 20
Data and programme information: Flat transfer: USD 35 per-household each month in 2012. (USD 50 in 2013). Unconditional on labour. Increasing inclusion and exclusion errors: Poor households (%) BDH recipient househols (%) We exploit this! 35 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 32.0 25.8 30.8 27.4 29.9 28.8 33.4 30.6 31.3 27.9 30.4 25.4 33.8 24.0 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Source: SENPLADES based on ENEMDUR (Decemcer) 21
Outline: 1. Economic effects of non-contributory social protection 2. Labour supply: context matter 3. Ecuador and the Bono de Desarrollo Humano, BDH 4. Empirical model and results 5. Conclusions and future steps 22
Collective labour supply setting: Two-stages budgeting problem Bloemen (2009) Three-stages empirical implementation: (selection model) 23
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Inactive: lack of time (39.7%), family (39.2%), sickness (9.5%). Inactive: housework (91.0%), disabled (5.0%), studying (3.0%) Leisure is not an option! 26
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Outline: 1. Economic effects of non-contributory social protection 2. Labour supply: context matter 3. Ecuador and the Bono de Desarrollo Humano, BDH 4. Empirical model and results 5. Conclusions and future steps 30
Conclusions: Social transfers are largely being implemented as a poverty and inequality reduction strategy Recent literature develops an analytical framework to argue in favour of potential economic returns, specially at the microlevel, but there still a gap regarding empirical evidence Traditional labour supply intuition indicates that social transfers may discourage labour, income effect Leisure is not a normal good is basic needs are not satisfied. It is not an option. 31
Conclusions: We estimated a three stages labour supply model based on a collective setting, for adults receiving a social transfer In the case of Ecuador there is not a significant effect: there is not disincentives neither incentives. More can be done. Results are policy relevant: Social transfers as an instrument for economic inclusion Correct targeting Complementary policies 32
Future steps: Robustness analysis Multidimensional estimation of rates of return. 33