Public transfers, food consumption and dietary diversity. The case of Tarjeta Uruguay Social

IF 6.8 1区经济学 Q1 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS & POLICY

Food Policy Pub Date : 2025-03-18 DOI:10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102837

Victoria Tenenbaum, Andrea Vigorito

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Social protection systems in several Latin American countries are increasingly adopting prepaid magnetic cards to promote the consumption of food and other essential goods. However, little is known about how these transfers affect household expenditure and consumption patterns or their advantages over cash options in high- and middle-income countries. Based on a fuzzy regression discontinuity design that exploits programme assignment rules, we assess the effect of the Uruguayan Tarjeta Uruguay Social (TUS) on food expenditure patterns and a dietary diversity score (DDS). We also analyse non-food expenditure and its components, and three potential explanatory channels: the infra/extra-marginality of the transfer; labour market attachment of the beneficiaries; and self-reported consumption decisions within the household. We do not find effects regarding food expenditure and the DDS, which could be mainly associated with the infra-marginality of the transfer. However, poorer households receiving doubled TUS amounts show positive changes in DDS (3%) and expenditure on fruit (17%) and legumes (9%) relative to a control group. In addition, TUS increases spending on housing for all beneficiaries, which is also reflected in an improvement in the quality of housing materials. Although it does not change the balance between cash and credit purchases, it does lead to a reduction in indebtedness, appears to act as an income stabilizer. These elements suggest that, for most households, TUS behaves like a purely cash transfer.

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公共转移支付、粮食消费和饮食多样性。Tarjeta Uruguay Social的案例

几个拉丁美洲国家的社会保护系统越来越多地采用预付费磁卡，以促进食品和其他必需品的消费。然而，对于这些转移如何影响高收入和中等收入国家的家庭支出和消费模式，或它们相对于现金选择的优势，人们知之甚少。基于利用项目分配规则的模糊回归不连续设计，我们评估了乌拉圭社会目标（TUS）对食物支出模式和饮食多样性评分（DDS）的影响。我们还分析了非食品支出及其组成部分，以及三个潜在的解释渠道：转移的下/额外边际性；受益人的劳动力市场依附；以及家庭内部自我报告的消费决策。我们没有发现对粮食支出和DDS的影响，这可能主要与转移的次边际性有关。然而，与对照组相比，获得两倍TUS的贫困家庭在DDS（3%）以及水果（17%）和豆类（9%）支出方面表现出积极变化。此外，美国增加了所有受益人的住房支出，这也反映在住房材料质量的改善上。虽然它不改变现金和信贷购买之间的平衡，但它确实导致负债减少，似乎起到了收入稳定器的作用。这些因素表明，对大多数家庭来说，美国国债的行为就像一种纯粹的现金转移。

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来源期刊

Food Policy 管理科学-农业经济与政策

CiteScore

11.40

自引率

4.60%

发文量

128

审稿时长

62 days

期刊介绍： Food Policy is a multidisciplinary journal publishing original research and novel evidence on issues in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of policies for the food sector in developing, transition, and advanced economies. Our main focus is on the economic and social aspect of food policy, and we prioritize empirical studies informing international food policy debates. Provided that articles make a clear and explicit contribution to food policy debates of international interest, we consider papers from any of the social sciences. Papers from other disciplines (e.g., law) will be considered only if they provide a key policy contribution, and are written in a style which is accessible to a social science readership.