BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//jEvents 2.0 for Joomla//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT UID:77f89d446928ea7c70c648ef26ad4426 CATEGORIES:Lecture / Reading / Talk CREATED:20211120T121115 SUMMARY:"The challenge of targeting extreme poverty: Evidence from Bangladesh" - A Talk by Dr. Viola Asri, University of Zurich DESCRIPTION:The Centre for Experimental Social Sciences (CESS) Nuffield - FLAME Univers ity is pleased to host Dr. Viola Asri, Postdoctoral Researchers at the Univ ersity of Zurich. Dr. Asri will be giving a talk titled "The Challenge of T argeting Extreme Poverty, Evidence from Bangladesh".\nAbstractState capacit y and accountability are notoriously weak in many developing countries. Ant i-poverty transfers are therefore often mistargeted and inefficient. To imp rove our understanding of the underlying factors causing ineffective implem entation of social policies, we examine primary survey data from 1296 elder ly individuals in the target group of a social welfare scheme and 87 local government officials in charge of selecting beneficiaries. We further use a lab-in-the-field experiment to uncover hidden traits and preferences of th e local government officials in charge. Focusing on cash transfers for elde rly poor, we show empirically that the selection of beneficiaries is virtua lly orthogonal to the national government's eligibility criteria. Eligibili ty criteria are either ignored or compensated for by other opposing conside rations. Further, illegitimate factors such as a personal connection to loc al government officials play a role for access to social transfers. Our stu dy provides evidence on relevant factors explaining the discrepancy between national policy formulation and local policy implementation that can feed into the future design of interventions aimed at improving the effectivenes s of social policies.\nBioDr. Asri is a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Ce nter for Comparative and International Studies at the University of Zurich. Her research focuses on the provision of social security in developing cou ntries, with her main interest being centered on targeting challenges and t he mitigation of old-age poverty. Before joining the University of Zurich, she worked as research associate in the Indo-German Social Security Program implemented by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and conducted rese arch on contributory micro-pensions in India. Her interest in these topics results from studying Development Economics at the Universities of Göttinge n (Germany), Saragossa (Spain) and at the Delhi School of Economics (India) .\n X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

The Centre for Experimental Social Sciences (CESS) Nuffield - FLAME Univ ersity is pleased to host Dr. Viola Asri, Postdoctoral Researchers at the U niversity of Zurich. Dr. Asri will be giving a talk titled "The Challenge o f Targeting Extreme Poverty, Evidence from Bangladesh".

Abstract

State capacity and accountability are notoriously weak in many developi ng countries. Anti-poverty transfers are therefore often mistargeted and in efficient. To improve our understanding of the underlying factors causing i neffective implementation of social policies, we examine primary survey dat a from 1296 elderly individuals in the target group of a social welfare sch eme and 87 local government officials in charge of selecting beneficiaries. We further use a lab-in-the-field experiment to uncover hidden traits and preferences of the local government officials in charge. Focusing on cash t ransfers for elderly poor, we show empirically that the selection of benefi ciaries is virtually orthogonal to the national government's eligibility cr iteria. Eligibility criteria are either ignored or compensated for by other opposing considerations. Further, illegitimate factors such as a personal connection to local government officials play a role for access to social t ransfers. Our study provides evidence on relevant factors explaining the di screpancy between national policy formulation and local policy implementati on that can feed into the future design of interventions aimed at improving the effectiveness of social policies.

Bio

Dr. Asri is a Post doctoral Researcher with the Center for Comparative and International Studi es at the University of Zurich. Her research focuses on the provision of so cial security in developing countries, with her main interest being centere d on targeting challenges and the mitigation of old-age poverty. Before joi ning the University of Zurich, she worked as research associate in the Indo -German Social Security Program implemented by the German Development Coope ration (GIZ) and conducted research on contributory micro-pensions in India . Her interest in these topics results from studying Development Economics at the Universities of Göttingen (Germany), Saragossa (Spain) and at the De lhi School of Economics (India).

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