The Structure of Preferences for Conditional Cash Transfers

• In Event: Enforcement, Redistribution and Stateness

Abstract

This paper explores the structure of support for the enforcement of conditionalities in conditional cash transfers (CCTs). CCT programs provide income transfers to poor families, conditional on compliance with requirements linked to children’s health and education. One common argument is that, by conditioning transfers and sanctioning recipients in the event of non-compliance with conditions, conditionalities make such redistributive transfers more palatable to the middle-classes. Yet the (limited) empirical evidence suggests that although CCTs increase electoral support among the poorest, middle- and high-income voters tend to disapprove of them. We implement conjoint survey experiments in three Latin American countries (Argentina, Uruguay and Chile) to measure support for the stringency and enforcement of conditionalities. We provide first experimental evidence of when non-beneficiaries support more stringent conditionality and when they prefer greater forbearance across different profiles of offenders.

Authors

• Florencia Antia, Universidad de la República

• Santiago López-Cariboni, Universidad de la República

• Irene Menendez, IE University

• Cecilia Rossel, Universidad Católica del Uruguay