Important update from reading the paper: Figure A3 (the objective and subjective outcomes chart) is biased against the cash-receiving groups and can’t be taken at face value. Getting money did not make everything worse. The authors recognize this; it’s why they say there was no effect on the objective outcomes (I previously thought they were just being cowards about the error bars).
The bias is from an attrition effect: basically, control-group members with bad outcomes disproportionately dropped out of the trial. Search for ‘attrition’ in the paper to see their discussion on this.
This doesn’t erase the study; the authors account for this and remain confident that the cash transfers didn’t have significant positive impacts. But they conclude that most or all of the apparent negative impacts are probably illusory.
20% of the control group dropped out of the study while only 10% or 12% of those receiving cash did. This is a major between-groups attrition effect! I’m not as sure that there were no positive effects: even a very small proportion dropping out due to severe negative effects of poverty would completely reverse the effects they were able to measure.
This probably doesn’t affect the finding that the amount of cash received ($500 or $2000) did not greatly affect measurable outcomes, though. The attrition rate was very similar between those two groups.
I notice that the majority of extra spending during the trial was not even approximately tracked, as it fell into the uninformative category of “transfers”. Not nearly enough to verify whether the previously stated intended use of the money was actually borne out in practice. That said, the major intended spending categories that were reported substantially more often in the payment groups than control (housing and bills, about +10% each) almost certainly do fall under “debt”.
Important update from reading the paper: Figure A3 (the objective and subjective outcomes chart) is biased against the cash-receiving groups and can’t be taken at face value. Getting money did not make everything worse. The authors recognize this; it’s why they say there was no effect on the objective outcomes (I previously thought they were just being cowards about the error bars).
The bias is from an attrition effect: basically, control-group members with bad outcomes disproportionately dropped out of the trial. Search for ‘attrition’ in the paper to see their discussion on this.
This doesn’t erase the study; the authors account for this and remain confident that the cash transfers didn’t have significant positive impacts. But they conclude that most or all of the apparent negative impacts are probably illusory.
20% of the control group dropped out of the study while only 10% or 12% of those receiving cash did. This is a major between-groups attrition effect! I’m not as sure that there were no positive effects: even a very small proportion dropping out due to severe negative effects of poverty would completely reverse the effects they were able to measure.
This probably doesn’t affect the finding that the amount of cash received ($500 or $2000) did not greatly affect measurable outcomes, though. The attrition rate was very similar between those two groups.
I notice that the majority of extra spending during the trial was not even approximately tracked, as it fell into the uninformative category of “transfers”. Not nearly enough to verify whether the previously stated intended use of the money was actually borne out in practice. That said, the major intended spending categories that were reported substantially more often in the payment groups than control (housing and bills, about +10% each) almost certainly do fall under “debt”.