The effect of timely cash transfers during an extreme flood shock: Evidence from the 2022 Pakistan Floods

Last registered on October 04, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The effect of timely cash transfers during an extreme flood shock: Evidence from the 2022 Pakistan Floods
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012147
Initial registration date
September 20, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
October 04, 2023, 1:35 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Rocco Zizzamia
Affiliation
University of Oxford
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Nihan Rafique
PI Affiliation
World Bank
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PI Name
Ashley Pople
PI Affiliation
World Bank
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PI Name
Muhammad Bin Khalid
PI Affiliation
Yale-NUS
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-10-02
End date
2025-09-14
Keywords
Environment & Energy, Finance & Microfinance, Health, Welfare
Additional Keywords
Climate change, migration
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Climate change driven natural disasters are pushing an estimated 26 million people into poverty every year and disproportionately impacting the world’s poorest countries. Typically, government and humanitarian responses to climate disasters are mobilized after the shock occurs when much of the damage has already been done. There is reason to believe that acting early by providing cash payments – before or during a climate disaster – may help households prevent some of the damage. Improvements in early action systems provide an opportunity for governments and humanitarian actors to mitigate the worst humanitarian impacts of climate disasters.
During the 2022 flooding in Pakistan, the World Bank was able to mobilise $150 million to provide a one-off cash transfer ($88 per recipient) to 1.3 million households from September to November. Given that a state of emergency was only declared on August 25 and flooding lasted until at least October 2022, the speed of this social protection response was unusually rapid in the context of humanitarian assistance during floods. This project aims to utilise a quasi-experimental approach – a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to understand the impacts of timely assistance on household resilience to extreme climate shocks. While there is a large body literature on the role of cash transfers in cushioning the negative income effects of shocks, experimental evidence on the effectiveness of cash transfers in response to extreme weather events, especially one-off cash transfers, remains scarce. Most research on disaster response focuses largely on the role of cash transfers in facilitating recovery from extreme weather events. This research explores the potential for “shock-responsive” cash transfers to limit the welfare cost of the shock through adaptive actions during a crisis.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bin Khalid, Muhammad et al. 2023. "The effect of timely cash transfers during an extreme flood shock: Evidence from the 2022 Pakistan Floods ." AEA RCT Registry. October 04. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12147-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The objective of this study is to evaluate the medium-run impact of providing timely cash payments during an extreme flooding event on household welfare and behavioural choices, such as migration.

Pakistan is ranked 8th among countries most affected by climate change, according to the Global Climate Risk Index 2021. In 2022, flooding in Pakistan resulted in a significant loss of life and widespread devastation, with economic damages being estimated at a minimum of $30 billion, equivalent to approximately 10% of Pakistan's GDP.

To mitigate the adverse impact of the flood, a one-off cash payment was made per eligible household through the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) to enable beneficiaries to meet their urgent and essential needs including support for food, water, shelter etc. in addition to regular social protection transfers implemented through BISP. Recipients were eligible to receive grants if they scored 32 or lower on a proxy means test (PMT). This initiative was funded by the Pakistan Hydromet and Climate Services Project (PHCSP), a World Bank-supported operation with the objective of restoring ecosystems in selected areas and providing an immediate and effective response to an Eligible Crisis or Emergency. Using this threshold, approximately the bottom 40% of households in affected areas were eligible for support. Those who scored just below the PMT threshold of 32, and were therefore eligible to receive cash support, are likely to be very similar to those who scored just above the threshold, and who were therefore not eligible to receive cash assistance. By exploiting the large variation in support provided to households straddling this threshold, this study will be able to measure the impact of timely cash support during a flood on a range of welfare and other outcomes.

To do so, the study aims to administer a short survey to households whose PMT scores in 2022 rendered them (just) eligible to receive cash support as well as to households whose PMT scores rendered them (just) ineligible to receive cash support. Surveys will be administered prior to the 2023 monsoon season. This allows the project to measure the extent of household recovery over the longer term (approximately 8-9 months after cash was received) and prior to further potential disruption caused by flooding in the 2023 monsoon season.
Intervention Start Date
2023-10-02
Intervention End Date
2025-09-14

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Household consumption, household asset holdings, migration, adaptation
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Income, labour supply, health, education, savings, access to credit, access to government and non-government social services
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
For this project, we exploit a sharp discontinuity in the eligibility rule for receiving cash transfers during the 2022 Pakistan floods, funded through a World Bank programme. Specifically, the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) used a proxy means test (PMT) scoring system to determine eligibility for receiving emergency cash transfers during the 2022 flooding event, where those with a PMT score below 32 were eligible to receive the cash transfer and those with a PMT score at or above 32 were ineligible to receive the cash transfer. By comparing outcomes of households immediately on either side of this eligibility threshold, this experiment uses a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate the welfare impacts of receiving cash on those just below the cut-off compared to those just above it, measured one year after the cash transfers were made. Household survey data will be collected from a sample of households just above and just below the eligibility cut-off. The sample will consist of 4,000 households from 200 selected villages in Sindh province (approximately 10 per village with a PMT score of 31 and 10 per village with a PMT score of 32).
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization using computer assignment.
Randomization Unit
Household
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
200 villages
Sample size: planned number of observations
4000 households
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2000 households in the control unit and 2000 households in the treatment unit.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
CUREC-DREC
IRB Approval Date
2023-09-14
IRB Approval Number
ECONCIA22-23-27
Analysis Plan