Speakers
Description
Societies in South Asia are ageing quickly and only few elderly receive contributory pensions, highlighting the importance of social pension systems. However, evidence on the impact of social pension receipt on the beneficiaries' well-being and their trust in local governments is scarce. This paper uses data on eligibility criteria of several thousand beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of Bangladesh's Old Age Allowance, which was collected before inclusion into the program, to estimate the impact of the social pension on consumption, mental and physical health, and trust in local government. We use a combination of coarsened exact matching and nearest neighbor matching and find that, on average, social pension receipt had no significant effect on consumption, physical or mental health, but a large positive impact on trust in local governments. The lack of significant impacts on welfare may be related to ineffective targeting approaches that benefit less poor individuals and households for whom the amount of the social pension makes a relatively small difference.
| Keyword | Impact Evaluation |
|---|
