Food Aid Targeting, Shocks and Private Transfers Among East African Pastoralists

47 Pages Posted: 8 Oct 2004

See all articles by Erin Lentz

Erin Lentz

University of Texas at Austin - Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs

Christopher B. Barrett

Cornell University - Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management

Date Written: June 2005

Abstract

Public transfers of food aid are intended largely to support vulnerable populations in times of stress. We use high frequency panel data among Ethiopian and Kenyan pastoralists to test the efficacy of food aid targeting under three different targeting modalities, food aid's responsiveness to different types of shocks, and its relationship to private transfers. We find that self-targeting food-for-work or indicator-targeted free food distribution more effectively reach the poor than does food aid distributed according to community-based targeting. Food aid flows do not respond significantly to either covariate, community-level income or asset shocks, nor to idiosyncratic, household-level income or asset shocks. Rather, food aid flows appear to respond mainly to more readily observable rainfall measures. Finally, food aid does not appear to affect private transfers in any meaningful way, either by crowding out private gifts to recipient households nor by stimulating increased gifts by food aid recipients.

Keywords: drought, crowding out, pass through, safety nets, social insurance, targeting

Suggested Citation

Lentz, Erin and Barrett, Christopher B., Food Aid Targeting, Shocks and Private Transfers Among East African Pastoralists (June 2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=601241 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.601241

Erin Lentz

University of Texas at Austin - Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs ( email )

2300 Red River St., Stop E2700
PO Box Y
Austin, TX 78713
United States

Christopher B. Barrett (Contact Author)

Cornell University - Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management ( email )

315 Warren Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-7801
United States
607-255-4489 (Phone)
607-255-9984 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://aem.cornell.edu/faculty_sites/cbb2/

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