Acknowledgments

We thank: Fabio Veras Soares for his peer-review of an earlier version of the article, an anonymous referee and the journal editor for providing essential inputs. We are also grateful for the comments received at the following conferences: the Transfer Project workshop in Addis Ababa, the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) conference in Oxford, the Pacific Development conference in Riverside, and the fourth Annual Bank Conference on Africa (ABCA) in Berkeley. Errors and omissions are the sole responsibility of the authors. The data used in this paper were collected by the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and the Centre for Social Research of the University of Malawi for the impact evaluation of the Social Cash Transfer Programme, commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Malawi. The SCTP impact evaluation falls under a larger effort, the Transfer Project, jointly implemented by UNICEF, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Save the Children and UNC, which supports the implementation of cash transfer evaluations in sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis included in this article is part of this broader research agenda. Data are not currently publically available, but the authors will facilitate access to estimation, raw data and code in a timely and effective way, if necessary under license to the ultimate owner.