On Sustainability between Social Protection Systems and Social Welfare Outcomes🔒

PREFACE: The «ABDUL LATIF JAMEEL POVERTY ACTION LABORATORY»  [J-PAL] in partnership with the «BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION», since Wednesday, July 29, 2020 [i.e. in J-PAL’s first set of large-scale project since the beginning of their organizational-wide shutdown, particularly of its ongoing field operations, which began on February 27, 2020] have and will be periodically evaluating ongoing research, which provides evidence-based insights to either decision and/or policymakers on how to solidify social protection systems and healthcare in order to protect underdeveloped environments and their most vulnerable inhabitants during the current public health crisis; and of which are funded by the «CASH TRANSFERS FOR CHILD HEALTH» [CaTCH] initiative, which currently attempts to address the various challenges imposed by «COVID-19»--and in addition to the issue of protecting the poor from COVID-19, which will be specifically discussed here, will later include income transfer approaches to social protection; improving access to governmental cash transfers; and improving health service and utilization. 

Here, it is important to understand and note that as of June 26, 2020, J-PAL initiatives had received a total of approximately 58 requests for proposals [i.e. 55 of which were off-cycle proposals and 4 were regular cycle COVID-19-related proposals (i.e. 1 of which not having off-cycle COVID round), totaling approximately USD 2.9M in J-PAL funding—in the initiative areas of: [1] crime and violence; [2] digital identification in finance; [3] governance; [4] agricultural technology adoption; [5] innovation in government; [6] post-primary education; and [7] housing stability evaluation incubator.

To date, beginning between the range from April 17 to May 4, the said NGO has funded 25 of these proposals, totaling USD 1.2M—however, as for CaTCH, this only consists of approximately 3.45 percent of the total proposals received, and would be only 2.01 percent of the total amount currently in projected funding [i.e. approx. USD 24.3K, INR 1.8M], of the total amount of J-PAL’s current funding distribution scheme, which includes their regular-cycle Spring 2020 RFPs; and only accounts for 2.13 percent of the off-cycle RFPs], and of who’s proposed funding is still currently under review by J-PAL.

Note that CaTCH, established in 2016, asserts that its primary and current focus is to study social schemes—particularly, government ministries in India at both the Central and Provincial levels, who over the last several decades introduced lots of cash transfer schemes, of whose intent are to make subtle improvements in social welfare outcomes [i.e. educational, maternal and child health (e.g. pre-to-post natal), female child health (e.g. reproductive), etc.].

The further said NGO’s specific objective is to improve child health by generating policy-relevant rigorous evidence on the design and delivery of «cash transfer» and «pay-for-performance schemes» in India by: [1] the comprehensive review of existing evidence on design and delivery of cash transfers and pay for performance schemes; [2] the identification of key research gaps and potential government partners for collaboration; and [3] funding scoping pilots and large-scale randomized controlled trials in an effort to measure impact.

With CaTCH’s research focus being placed on the effectivity and improvement in the design and delivery of cash transfer schemes, and pay for performance for health and other supply-side improvements—their current projects total 186.9M INR [i.e. USD 2.5M]; and consisting of 7 full evaluations and 10 pilots, with studies in 11 provinces and union territories.

Accordingly, this initiative is co-chaired J-PAL «Health» and «Gender» affiliates by «Pascaline Dupas», Professor of Economics, Stanford University; and «Seema Jayachandran», Professor, Northwestern University.  

ON PROTECTING THE MOST VULNERABLE FROM ECONOMIC SHOCK: In this effort, on July 29, discussion was specifically held on protecting the poor from the various shocks imposed by the current pandemic and public health crisis by J-PAL Southeast Asia Co-Directors Rema Hanna, Cheah Professor of South East Asia Studies, Harvard Kennedy School; Benjamin Olken, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Asha Krishnan, of «HAQDARSHAK EMPOWERMENT SOLUCTIONS».

Note that «HAQDARSHAK», is a small-scale social startup, which partnered with researchers on an ongoing evaluation of a model which consisted of the development of a mobile, multilingual technology platform with over 5K welfare schemes and trains people to use this in order to help people in the community access welfare schemes—to which, here, A. Krishnan discussed the work of these welfare schemes and its response during the recent outbreak of the coronaviruses.

The discussion was moderated by Suneeta Krishnan [i.e. no relation], from the «Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation», for which the researchers presented evidence on the role of government welfare and social protection schemes’ ability to mitigate the effects of the current lockdown; and what governments can do in terms of making improvements in targeting decisions and the delivery of these schemes in order to protect the most vulnerable of underdeveloped environments.

IMPLICATIONS OF EVIDENCE FROM WORLD BANK: The discussion began by Hanna and Olken presenting a few facts from «WORLD BANK HUMAN DEVELOPMENT GROUP» with regards to long lasting impact with great uncertainty in that although COVID-19 has created devastating health challenges, an unprecedented economic shock for global poverty and inequality has been incurred as well; and therefore suggests a need for new forms of increased social protection on a large scale, with different people than before.

Global Social Assistance Expansion Precedence: Here, a massive expansion of social assistance was suggested in that to date, by Hanna, emphasizing that approximately 169 Provinces have enacted or expanded social assistance measures as a result of the crisis such that fiscal stimulus as a share of GDP is roughly 1.5 percent in low income Provinces, and approximately 7 percent in the lower middle-income Provinces—meanwhile, the United States contrastingly made expansion such that 13.6 percent has been distributed. 

By making an expansion to social schematic access and benefits, many Provinces utilized existing schematic platforms through the demonstration of how important investments in social protection systems and in various institutions work [i.e. Kenyan authorities used the existing flagship «INUA JAMII» which supports vulnerable cohorts such as the elderly, orphans, etc.; and a Brazilian-based scheme had more funds allocated to their main social scheme and additional people included as beneficiaries].

Systematic Challenges: This phenomenon raises the issue of whether systems and schemes should be designed or re-designed for the purpose of bringing some sort of relief through support over the next 1-2 years.

Hanna further pointed out that the World Bank Human Development Team cites that the developed world not only face key challenges in schematic financing, design and schematic delivery, but also, limited fiscal space due to lower tax collection to GDP ratios, and borrowing constraints; various challenges with targeting given a large informal sector with limited information; and challenges with delivery given weaker institutions and incomplete or underdeveloped markets [e.g. insurance markets and labor markets].

Guiding Principles: Inevitably, these social assistance expansions and systematic challenges raise further issues regarding the evidence on the normalities in modern social protection data, and how it informs decision making specifically regarding COVID-19—particularly in the areas of finance, safety nets and targeting, and delivery and digitization.

The guiding principle is reliant on one’s ability to understand and note that this crisis will last and evolve; and given this, now is the time to continue to adapt and build schemes and systems that are dynamic and flexible as the crisis evolves, which can help Provinces be prepared for subsequent economic downturns.

Finance: Olken further emphasized the notion of ensuring fiscal space for the purpose of managing the crisis, by explaining that the guiding principle suggests uncertainty over vaccine or herd community, and over recovery time; the recurrence of lockdowns; and lower taxation, which in return raises demand for competing budgetary needs [e.g. health, education, etc.]—which creates a great necessity to ensure the best use of available resources.

The «CORONAVIRUS GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TRACKER» is an electronic repository managed by the «UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, BLAVATNIK SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT», which systematically collects ad hoc government data on 17 indicators [e.g. school closures, travel restrictions, etc.] for approximately 178 Provinces to date; and is used to provide a cross-centralized overview of which Provinces meet 4 of the World Health Organization’s 6 recommendations [i.e as of June 1, 2020] for relaxing physical distancing measures.

According to data generated by this database, with regards to building social protection around the response to this current public health crisis, many Provinces have reached an optimal level from «acute lockdown approaches»—to which has resulted in 22 Provinces having imposed hard lockdown measures by the end of March, as opposed to 10 by the end of May; and 68 as opposed to 36, when considering that more Provinces are moving to stay-at-home recommendations.

Lockdowns: Visualizing how this crisis potentially looks, based on the Oxford data, it’s important to understand that there are substantial uncertainties in the future of lockdowns in that there are different policy approaches to reaching the appropriate consensus—regardless, it is important to plan in this current moment for these contingent differentiations.

Regarding social protection for lockdown periods, it is inevitable to point out that there is a need for either short or long-term transfers, but lockdowns are costly, and particularly in lower underdeveloped societies because many people in these environments live «hand-to-mouth», which extends beyond the rationale of the general low-income environment in which individuals live «paycheck-to-paycheck» [i.e. direct food assistance allows for the automatic self-targeting such that there’s no need to distribute fancy food, nonetheless it meets the basic need]. 

Regarding social protection without lockdowns, it must be considered that targeting then becomes more important which would in return maintains continuity in exclusion error—this is the case because: with cost constraints, with the same level of funds [i.e. even with high relative rates of targeting error], the overall welfare level of the poor is higher under targeted schemes, partly because underdeveloped environments have less of an ability to progressively tax back the transfer from the rich; «targeting error» is lower for people who receive a higher share of the tax distribution [i.e. the objective is to presumably target the bottom 50% as opposed to the bottom 10%], which in return decreases the implausibility of «targeting error» [i.e. major emphasis is being placed on identifying additional methods to rectify real time «exclusion errors»].

All of these things were asserted by Hanna and Olken in 2018 in the examination of the potential elastic behaviors between targeting transfers to low income households as opposed to providing «UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME», in which they surveyed how the fact that most households in underdeveloped Provinces do not pay income taxes changes the developed world’s perception of these universal cash transfers.

They analyzed data from Indonesia and Peru, to document elastic behaviors, which held that despite imperfections in targeting using «PROXY-MEANS TESTS» [i.e. (PMT) which are assessments taken by enumeration during household surveys as a means of assessing the household’s net income aside from what may be documented with the authorized tax assessment ministry of the household’s centralized government], targeted transfers may result in substantially higher welfare gains than universal schemes, because for a given budget, they deliver much higher transfers to the poor.

Adversely, it held that targeted transfers led to more horizontal equity violations, and create an implied tax on consumption in the region where benefits are phased out—which in return generated discussion on how the utilization of alternative targeting approaches [i.e. community-based targeting/self-targeting] to further improve targeting in some situations.  

Schematic Flexibility: Regarding how to make schemes more flexible, Olken further discussed the existence of a real political challenge of how to temporarily target resources to geographically hit areas [e.g. the United States Federal Government can’t announce a «Special Transfer to Residents of New York»; the political pressures to reach rural areas despite prevalence in urban necessity].

When considering making social protection policies automatically tied to region-specific health metrics, social distancing, lockdown policies, etc., it is important to understand that these phases can be linked to social protection components such that they automatically trigger when a region goes into a phase which targets the most affected cohorts of the population—for instance, India was classified as a territory that is spectrally scattered with mostly, mildly and least affected areas of COVID-19 until it started lifting lockdown measures; and Indonesia was classified as having been inversely plotted to the scheme of this spectrum.

Olken states that this suggests that Provinces should think about having the social protection component because this automatically makes them linked to both the public health level and other subsequent levels that are compliant with social distancing requirements.

The first reason for this is because governments want different kinds of policies [i.e. that is, more universal policies during times of strict lockdowns]; and secondly, it makes it politically easier to impose the most appropriate public health restrictions [e.g. several Provinces (i.e. United States, India, etc.) initially tried locking down, which imposed lots of economic costs on citizens for a lockdown period (i.e. April 2020 and May 2020), to which, according to S. Krishnan although an optimal level was attained, these places are still faced with high viral load exposure rates, which have led to discussions of whether in certain regions it’s necessary to undergo a «reset process»].

To do this is extremely difficult politically due to the cost impositions of the first lockdown; and it perhaps maybe easier to have subsequent lockdown policies if they’re automatically paired with a specific social response—the problem, however, with this is that once a government begins implementing these types of policies, it becomes very difficult to renege on them—but again, if automatically paired, then it’s easier to institute a less generous transfer policy.

Olken further states that this economic policy isn’t perfect, because shocks have spilled all across the world in this specific case, for example, but they have very important stratification components which make them considerably useful.

Support and Selectivity: And he continues with a discussion on the current state of affairs, accentuating that many Provinces did the right thing as far as what can be done in the moment of crisis in that they expounded upon existing targeting data and the use of existing systems.

For instance, Chile issued benefits to informal workers using a social registry of households; Nigeria expanded its social register from 1M to 4M households; and Pakistan launched a scheme entitled the «EHSAAS EMERGENCY CASH PROGRAMME» [EEC], which leveraged existing social benefit databases.

Note that although these things were cited as the right thing to do, the problem is that in settling in to what’s being classified as the «new normal», experts tend to think that now is the time to step back and think more about systematic changes to improve how both systems work, but also think about how systems will perform in future downturns.

Unified Database Systems [UDB]: In this context, unified database systems are currently being viewed as a type of universal targeting system, which in itself, is not said to be a bad idea, however, thorough strengths and weaknesses analyses must be performed in order to determine who they capture well; exclusion factors [i.e. voluntary and involuntary], given that costs in this regard are much higher due to the fact that exclusion from these systems ultimately translate into exclusion from many schemes; and whether these systems allow for more flexible transitions on and off the systems.

Often these systems are based on proxy-means tests [PMT], which have 2 key characteristics—they target the permanent component of consumption; and the data typically tends to be «static» such that most of it typically requires a low frequency in being updated or revised, and therefore this infrequency is often desirable to the data collection and qualitative processes.

When proxy-means testing targets the permanent component of consumption, these typically include observable durable goods or assets [i.e. materials used to construct the habitational dwelling, furniture, electronics, etc.]; and further implies that proxy-means testing errors will be systematic in that they will fail to capture either people who experience recent shocks or people who experience unparalleled shocks [e.g. although the household’s habitational dwelling is constructed from some rather expensive material (i.e. stone, brick, cinder block, etc.), the household physically has the most modern furniture and/or electronic equipment, which significantly increases asset value and net worth (i.e. against the measure of this by a general tax assessment)—the individuals within the household, to include either the head-of-household or the primary physical source of income of the household have no income; but they still have these nice material investments].

It is important to note that these characteristics work very well when targeting the «systematic poor» for long-run schemes, but both these characteristics present a uniquely challenging impediment during this new COVID era when needing to expand to the newly vulnerable, and those who may look more middle-class in terms of assets, but are actually facing income shocks.

Effectivity of Community-Based and Self-Targeting Measures: Accordingly, Olken presented several different cases asserting that community-based and self-targeting can improve flexibility in identifying the poor without increasing targeting entirely.

Firstly, Hanna, he and others, in a public economics, political economy and development study, performed in 2012 looked at the impact of elite capture on the allocation of targeted welfare schemes in Indonesia, using a high-stakes field experiment that varied the extent of elite influence and non-experimental data on a variety of existing government transfer schemes, which held conditional on consumption steady, that whereas there existed little evidence that village elites and their relatives were more likely to receive aid schemes than non-elites, this overall result masks or covers up stark differences between different types of elites [i.e. formal leadership position holding elites are more likely to receive benefits, while informal leaders are less likely], by showing that capture by formal elites occurs when schematic benefits are actually distributed to households, and not during the process of determining who should be on the beneficiary lists.

But while elite capture exists, the welfare losses incurred appear to be small, given that formal elites and their relatives are only 9 percent richer than non-elites; they are at best, approximately 8 percentage points more likely to receive benefits than non-elites; and they represent at most, approximately 15 percent of the population, which suggests that eliminating elite capture would improve the welfare gains from these schemes by less than 1 percent [i.e. which here, wouldn’t be classified as a schematic marginal benefit].

Secondly, J-PAL affiliate Pascaline Dupas, and other researchers, in a development and political economy study done in 2016 identified that developing countries spent vast sums of money on subsidies, such that beneficiaries were typically selected via either a proxy-means test, or via some decentralization process led by local leaders, which although may offer informational or accountability advantages, may also be prone to elite capture. 

They studied how this type of elastic behavior--in the context of 1 large-scale subsidy scheme for agricultural inputs, and another for food, both of which took place in rural Malawi—decentralized to traditional chiefs, who were asked to target the needy; and found by using high-frequency household panel data on neediness and shocks, that although nepotism exists, it only has limited mis-targeting consequences.

More importantly, they found that chiefs targeted household with higher returns to farm inputs, which generated an allocation that yields more efficient productivity rates as opposed to what would have been achieved by undergoing a proxy-means assessment—which suggested that welfare could be improving, given the notion that internal village redistribution is common. 

Additionally, Dupas and another set of researchers performed a development and public economics study in 2019, in which captured the development of novel empirical tools for analyzing the demand and the welfare-effects of policy-interventions in binary choice settings with social interactions [i.e. subsidies for health-product adoption; vouchers for attending a high-achieving school; etc.].

Here, the connection between econometrics of large games and Brock-Durlauf type interaction models [i.e. which factors in aggregate behavior outcomes when individual utility exhibits social interaction effects] under both I.I.D. [i.e. independently and identically distributed random variables] and spatially correlated unobservables was established—which found new optimized results for associated beliefs and estimates of differential-based parameters under increasing domain spatial asymptotics

Then, they illustrated [i.e. using experimental data on mosquito-net adoption in rural Kenya] that even for fully parametric specifications and unique equilibrium, [i.e. choice data, that are sufficient for counterfactual demand-prediction under interactions, but are insufficient for welfare-calculations], due to the fact that distinct underlying mechanisms producing the same interaction coefficient can imply different welfare-effects and deadweight-loss from a policy-intervention—to which standard index-restriction implications suggest a distribution-free bounds on welfare.

Community and Self Targeting Measures: Considering these 3 analyses the ultimate objective as presented, specifically regarding community-based targeting in the effort of improving flexibility in identifying the poor without increasing targeting expectations include giving each community a fixed number of slots [e.g. based on poverty level], and allow local community institutions to identify beneficiaries.

The above noted 2012 study from the public, political and development standpoint provided evidence that beneficiary lists better correspond with local understanding poverty, and with much higher community satisfaction—therefore, it is inferred that potential advantages will reduce exclusion error, capture recent shocks, and adapt to local understanding of poverty, particularly from the elitist perspective.

Other measures of concern included the number of households that should be added to beneficiary list; the number of households that should be removed from beneficiary list; and the number of complaints—these 3 things considered under either the community-based method, proxy means test method, and cross-methods—to which community targeting led to much higher satisfaction; better selected households that self-identify as poor; and chose slightly different characteristics of households than the proxy-means-test. 

Secondly, regarding the development and political economy study of 2016, it was determined that community-based and self-targeting can improve flexibility in identifying the poor without increasing targeting error.

The on-demand application of self-targeting allotted for people to apply to be included in beneficiary lists that were verified by ensuring that proxy-means-tests with higher thresholds were matched with employer information on bank or cell phone records—of which potential advantages were that this may screen in people who really needed the assistance, and screen out those who were rich; and held that adding an on-demand step helps improve screening compared to PMT with similar eligibility.

The requirement imposed on households to apply lead to more of the poor receiving benefits compared to automatic screening of which led to: both lower inclusion error and lower exclusion error in the on-demand application; 61 percent of eligible [i.e. poor] households in applying; and non-poor households being less likely to get benefits due to rich households not being bothered to apply.  

Administrative Data: The current COVID-19 crisis requires the identification of approaches to target people who typically are excluded by the practice of leveraging new sources of administrative data that capture economic shocks.

This was illustrated by Olken from a 2015 study performed by researchers who captured industrialized economies and long-term sources data which enable new approaches to demographic profiling in underdeveloped countries—which are places where there are not as many big data sources in existence like in more developed countries.

Here, it was found that an individual’s past history of mobile phone use can be used to make inference on their socioeconomic status; and that the predicted attributes of millions of people can, in turn, accurately reconstruct the distribution of wealth of an entire nation; or of the asset distribution of micro-regions composed of just a few households—of which in resource-constrained environments where censuses and household surveys are not typical at all, this approach creates an option for gathering localized and timely information at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.

In tandem to this, Olken presented that cellphone data such as predicting the socioeconomic status of a household using mobile phone networks, and ongoing replications, electricity use data, bank account data, lists of people laid off from formal industry, etc., serve as novel sources of administrative data that serve as identification approaches in this effort.

Also, was presented a 2020 development, public and development economy study just recently revised [i.e. and not publicly release by the United States federal government] which was performed, and explained that the core design challenge is managing the tradeoff between «Type-II errors» of inclusion [i.e. to include corruption] against «Type-I errors» of exclusion [i.e. legitimate beneficiaries are denied benefits], to which a large-scale experiment was randomized across 15M beneficiaries to evaluate the effects of more stringent identification requirements based on biometric authentication on the delivery of subsidized food, which is India’s largest social protection scheme, in the Province of Jharkhand.

Here, it was found that biometric authentication to transact did not reduce leakage, slightly increased transaction costs for the average beneficiary, and reduced benefits received by the subset of beneficiaries who had not previously registered an entity issued ID by 10.6 percent; and the existence of an event study of subsequent reforms that made use of authenticated transaction data to determine resource allocation to the scheme shows that these coincided with large reductions in leakage, but also significant reductions in benefits received.

These results highlighted that attempts to reduce corruption in welfare schemes by making identification requirements more stringent can also generate non-trivial costs in terms of exclusion and inconvenience to genuine beneficiaries.  

The major takeaway is that universal identification systems are an important basis for novel sources of data in that they allow linking across datasets, but recent evidence suggests that when imperfect, the use of these systems can lead to important gaps for those who do not have issued IDs; they invest in improving these systems; and they are important to ensure that they are inclusive, particularly for disadvantaged and minority groups.

Social Distancing Necessities: Here, Hanna continued with addressing this crisis, specifically as it relates to the social distancing issue, which is said to have reinvigorated the move to digital enrollment and payments systems.

It was presented, that development research was performed by researchers in 2019 which informed that benefactors to underdeveloped countries are taking advantage of «fintech tools» to create fully digital loans on mobile phones; and to which administrative and survey data was used to study take-up and impacts of «M-Shwari», [i.e. one of the most popular digital loan products in the Kenyan world].

It was found that 34% of eligible individuals take up the loan [i.e. which does not substitute for other credit], which improves household resilience; that households are 6.3 percentage points less likely to forego expenses due to negative shocks; and that while digital loans improve financial access and resilience, they are not a remedy for greater credit market failures.

It was also presented, a development study which was originally done in 2016, but was revised 2019, which attempts to answer the question of where stringent formal sector borrowing requirements common in many developing countries restrict credit access, technology adoption and welfare, which found that when dairy savings and credit cooperative randomly offered to farmers in Kenya replaced loans with high down payments and stringent guarantor requirements with loans collaterized by the asset itself [i.e. a large water tank], then loan take-up increased from 2.4 percent to 41.9 percent, allotted an opportunity; and adversely found that substituting joint liability requirements for deposit requirements did not affect loan take up; also cited that there were no repossessions among farmers allowed to collaterized 75 percent of their loans, and only a 0.7% repossession rate among those offered 96 percent asset collateralization.  

A test given by the researchers based on waiving borrowing requirements ex post found evidence of adverse selection with lowered deposit requirements, but not of moral hazard; and held that a simple model and rough calibration suggests that adverse selection may deter lenders form making welfare-improving loans with lower deposit requirements, even after introducing asset collateralization, such that they estimate that 2/3 of marginal loans led to increased water storage investment.

Opportunities and Challenges: The real effects of loosening borrowing requirements included household water access, reductions in child time spent on water-related tasks, and greater school enrollment for girls; and the major opportunities of digitization was the general spur of mobile money; and challenges which generally were the rapid switch over permanently inefficient systems, especially since it is known that organizational and technological change is difficult after the initial seeding.

TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES: With these 3 projects in consideration, Hanna then further presented development, health care, health economics and public economics research performed by Olken, others and her, initially in 2019 [i.e. not released to the public by the United States Federal Government], in which they designed a randomized experiment involving approximately 6K households in Indonesia who are subject to a nationally mandated government health insurance scheme in an attempt to assess ways to achieve widespread health insurance coverage with financial solvency in developing countries.

Here, several interventions that simple theory and prior evidence were assessed, which suggested could increase coverage and reduce adverse selection, to include substantial temporary price subsidies [i.e. which had to be activated within a limited time window and lasted for only a year], assisted registration, and information—to which temporary subsidies and assisted registration increased initial enrollment.

Temporary subsidies attracted lower-cost enrollees, partly by eliminating the practice observed in the group that didn’t receive subsidies of strategically timing coverage for a few months during health emergencies—and as a result, while subsidies were in effect, they increased coverage more than a factor of 8, at no higher unit cost; after subsides ended, coverage remained twice as high [i.e. also at no higher unit cost]; and even after the subsidies ended, coverage remained twice as high, again at no higher unit cost, but the most intensively effective intervention, [i.e. which was an assisted registration and a full 1 year subsidy], resulted in only a 30 percent initial enrollment rate, understanding the challenges to achieving widespread coverage.

With regards to technology challenges in digital enrollment, there exists transition to web or phone-based enrollment systems; the examining of national health insurance [i.e. which found that while many people want to enroll when offered help with web based systems, actual enrollments were much lower than intended], which is due to the lack of discretion in the system to fix information regarding national identification numbers.

DIGITAL PAYMENT HYPOTHESES: Also, Hanna addressed the issue of whether individuals or households get the intended results from digital payments.

Firstly, there was the presentation of a development, labor studies, public and political economy study originally in 2017, but recently revised in 2020, which addressed the issue that public employment schemes might affect poverty through both the income they provide and their effects on private labor markets.

It was estimated, both the effects by the exploitation of a large-scale experiment randomized across 157 sub-districts [i.e. with an average population of 62.5K each], that improved the implementation of India’s national rural employment guarantee scheme—of which reform raised low-income households’ earnings by 13 percent, of which 90 percent of this increase came from non-schematic earnings driven by increases in both market wages and private-sector employment.

Workers’ reservation wages increased their employment gains higher in treated areas with more concentrated landholdings, consistent with monopsonistic labor markets; and increases in credit, private assets, and longer-term enterprise counts and non-agricultural employment, underscoring the far-reaching market impacts of the initial reform—to which these overall results suggested that public employment schemes can effectively reduce poverty in developing countries, and may also improve economic efficiency.  

Secondly, Hanna further addressed different development, public economics and political economy research from these same researchers another study in 2020 [i.e. not yet released to the public] which addressed the issue of how recipients of publicly-provided goods and services prove their identity in order to access these benefits [i.e. see 2020 development, public and development economy study from Administrative Data section, as presented by Olken p.11]—to which, the reconciling results held that in Andhra Pradesh, the scheme aimed to prevent exclusion errors by emphasizing beneficiary experience and was more flexible with previously unregistered beneficiaries.   

And then further addressed a different development, health care, health economics and public economics research in, from 2019 [i.e. not yet released to the public] in this effort [i.e. see 2019 development, health care, health economics and public economics study from Technological Challenges section, as presented by Hanna, (p. 13) ], of which it was cited that although the move to digital payments improved targeting, no one is using the bank accounts created for other forms of financial transactions, and therefore, transformational digital revolution is not happening—and of which Hanna explained that it is the case that even who is given the bank account may matter.

Next, Hanna presented that even who’s given the bank account may matter, firstly by presenting research in development done by a group of researchers in 2017, which explains that although several field experiments find positive returns to grants for male but not female entrepreneurs—these analyses largely overlook that male and female micro-entrepreneurs often belong to the same household.

Therefore, data from randomized trials in India, Sri Lanka and Ghana was used to show that the gender gap in microenterprise performance is not due to a gap in aptitude, but instead low average returns of female-ran enterprises are observable because women’s capital is invested into their husbands’ enterprises rather than their own, which suggests that when women are the sole household enterprise operator, capital shocks lead to large increases in profits; and household-level income gains are equivalent regardless of the grant or loan recipient’s gender.

Lastly, Hanna presented another group of researcher’s work in international economics at a recent macroeconomics seminar held in June 2020 [i.e. and not publicly release by the United States federal government], which uses the universe of Greek corporate tax returns data matched to financial statements data to study a voluntary and salient tax compliance scheme for small firms, of which the goal was to raise taxable profits—which was a self-assessment scheme prescribed target taxable profit margins for different types of activity such that, if firms reported profit margins above these targets in a given year, then they’d be exempt from audits in that year.

This held that the scheme raises taxable profits by a factor of 2 to 3 times in schematic years for self-selecting firms, but has only marginal long-lasting effects on tax reporting; that firms can easily and substantially manipulate revenue to help meet prescribed margins; and that overall, the scheme increased tax revenues collected from small firms, but points to a very large level of baseline under-reporting of profits.

To these 2 studies, Hanna emphasized that in India, depositing women’s wages from public workfare schemes directly into female-owned bank accounts instead of into the male household head’s account [i.e. the status quo] increased women’s work [i.e. both in the scheme and in the private sector]; and that in Saudi Arabia, women are more likely to even apply to transfer schemes when the learn the money can go directly to their own bank account rather than a joint family account; and

HOUSEHOLD AND SOCIAL SERVICE PARITY: Final comments from Hanna inferred a linking of households and social services such that for excluded household, a key challenge of providing social services is access; and households most in need may be victimized by adverse selection of the being designated on beneficiary lists—of which J-PAL, to include Olken as well, are working with the NGO «HAQDARSHAK» to measure demand for help to access public services specifically as they relate to empowerment solutions in response for COVID-19; and to which Asha Krishnan, from the India-based NGO then gave illustration of typical beneficiaries and constraints; and then addressed challenges in access to welfare; the Haqdarshak solution; partnerships; achievements; response to coronaviruses; and coronavirus relief via field observations.

A. Krishnan explained that under this scheme, a typical beneficiary may live in mining areas, work as farmers and/or as tribal leaders, and struggle such that they spend a typical day collecting firewood, walking over 10km in the nearby protected forest to collect it, and submit documents to a centralized ministry of the Government of India in order to receive contact with assistance—who allocated approximately USD 271.5B [i.e. INR 2.04T] for social assistance schemes for social assistance schemes for 2017-2018; however, there are still millions of people who do not receive the benefits from entitlements that they in fact are eligible for.

With regards to the typical constraints for the millions who do not have access to these benefits include accessibility in that many of them live in remote rural areas such that touch-points are far; infrastructure and mobility issues in that there’s limited mobility and low public transport, and poor network connectivity; literacy barriers such that the government information is not easy to understand; and social status, such that due to marginalization, individuals are socially and economically backward from many of the other inhabitants.

Specifically regarding the challenges in access to welfare from the beneficiary’s perspective, A. Krishnan emphasized the fact that World Bank data suggests that application processes can be long, costly, and complicated which disproportionately affects women and the poor.

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS: Accessibility problems often arise when determining eligibility due to complicated language and terminology that’s used, which often makes it awkward for potential beneficiaries to understand [i.e. due to castes dialects], which in turn makes it difficult to attain a scholarship in order to receive a labor card from the government in the event they don’t already have one.

For instance, typical labor law for the notification of labor needed for a construction worker may emphasize that in exercise of their powers, the applicant must read other worker regulations of employment and conditions of service, by which the Province Government after consultation with their expert committee[s] make[s] further rules for the amendment of yet another set of regulations for employment and conditions of service, which can be too bombarding to an individual who has a language barrier due to a caste dialect in an underdeveloped environment.

Often, certificates of employment issued by the employer indicating the duration of employment are required, which creates much circuitry in the event the individual does not readily have this information—for instance, in most cases if a certificate is not available, then a certificate must be issued by a registered Trade Union working for the worker of the area, or one issued by an Inspector appointed under a specified Act having jurisdiction or self-certification to that effect filed by the concerned worker containing full details of this information.

Also, in the absence of acknowledgement of eligibility, particularly due to death, assistance towards death and funeral may be sanctioned in favor of the legal heir of the deceased on production of a legal heir certificate from Competent Authorities, such that if there is more than 1 legal heir, then an affidavit has to be obtained from all legal heirs regarding who will be nominated to receive the assistance on the behalf of all the legal heirs—to which Death Benefits are typically available within a period of 60 days from the date of the death application.

The nominee who is entitled to the Death Benefit under rules such as these typically submit to the Secretary or any other Officer authorized by the secretary, an application—to which, a certificate regarding the natural or accidental death issued by a Government Doctor not below the rank of an Assistant Surgeon must be produced along with the application of other documents specified by the governing board; and in the case of accidental death [e.g. as in the case of a construction worker] at the site of employment, then the death application along with the death certificate, police report, postmortem report, and inquiry report of any labor official not below the rank of and assistant labor officer, must be produced.

With regards to attainment of scholarship in order to receive a labor card from the government in the event the individual doesn’t already have one, they are open to nationals of India belonging to a casts under specific classifications as notified by the central, provincial governments, etc., which are given for the study of all recognized post-matriculation or post-secondary courses pursued in recognized institutions as specified in the Indian government’s legal documents pertaining to this issue, to which only candidates who belong to specific castes so specified in relation to the province, to which the applicant actually belongs [i.e. permanently settled and who have passed the Matriculation or Higher secondary or any higher examination of a recognized institution will be eligible].

Candidates who after having passed one stage of education, who are studying in the same stage of education in a different subject will not be eligible; students studying in specific classes of higher secondary school courses or classes of multipurpose high school are not eligible for it being a continuous school course—however, in cases, where a specified class examination of such courses is treated as equivalent to Matriculation and students who after passing that said class join other courses, then such students will be treated as post-matric students and will be eligible for the award of scholarships.

Students pursuing post-graduate courses in medicine will be eligible only if they are not allowed to practice during the period of their course; and students who after failing or passing the undergraduate/postgraduate examinations in Arts/Science/Commerce join any recognized professional or otherwise eligible, but no subsequent failure will be condoned except for certain specified courses, and no further change in the course will be allowed thereafter.  

In applying for these type schemes World Bank found that there are challenges that exist in processing details, and in the existence of remote and intimidating touchpoints that often if opportunity exists, then creates great difficulty for individuals to continue to cooperate with application processes.

Often the schematic availability of benefits makes it difficult for even whose gone through the process to actually attain benefits, and in turn makes grievance redressal awkward as well; and also, because of the existence of multiple schemes, bombardment is experienced by individuals due to the novice of their decision making complexities [e.g. the Indian Government of Tamil Nadu lists over 15 departments that assist in the administration and distribution of these benefits, and over 500 different schemes to choose from; and the Government of Maharashtra lists over 500 different schemes across 25 different departments].

THE HAQDARSHAK SOLUTION: Essentially, Haqdarshak is a tech company which assists its clients [i.e. residence of India] apply for and benefit from welfare schemes in order to fulfil their long-term vision of poverty alleviation, by reaching each citizen at the bottom of the pyramid.

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In urbanized areas they send enumerators to the homes of citizens and assist them or someone they know apply for welfare schemes; and in rural areas, they guide citizens to the nearest network in the event citizens live outside of the NGOs operational area—typically, household and household-type surveys are conducted and assessed such that a field level representative visits the household in order to assess which schemes they are eligible for using the Haqdarshak mobile app for a nominal fee.

The NGO itself typically works with various enablers of the ecosystem [i.e. governments, other NGOS, corporates, self-help groups and foundation, etc.], train village-level entrepreneurs to use their app, who then go door-to-door and help citizens discover and nominally apply for schemes, which becomes a revenue for the village-level entrepreneurs; and accordingly works with communities with captive labor forces, and citizens in an effort to maximize impact.

For the android application they’re required to use, the scheme content is available in local language in an offline application; with regards to determined eligibility, it provides an engine which works offline in which new schemes pushed inevitably; and the application process and availability of benefits include simplified instructions to prompt enumerators to assist clients in the process.

They have partnered with a number of NGOs, to include J-PAL in a collaborative approach such that it provides evidence for improving uptake, large-scale randomized controlled trial planning of a project to take place in Rajasthan in October 2020; leveraging well established institutions; innovating for justice in technology; and working with the central government.

COVID-19 Relief: Specifically regarding field observations and opportunities, A. Krishnan asserted that information and execution is critical in this effort in that comprehensive information must be given via well-defined channels and mechanisms; and in that a suitable execution channel between provincial and central governments must be made.

While monetary aspects of relief include instant money transfers to women, farmers being benefitted, state-based farmer channels, etc., often there are missing details at various touch-points; for food networks, there are additional sanctions and temporary cards issued, which provide immediate relief that opens more outlets in the urbanized environments, but also the problem exists that many shops and venders await eligibility for partnering with these schemes since the governmental announcement of these various schemes; with regards to safe boarding, transportation is provided, and so is state-ran short term housing, but urban options are limited; with regards to health, there is expanded coverage, but there still exists a need for health worker salary protections; and with regards to daily wages, various allocations do exist that assist with providing ministries with the proper funding, urban vendor loans exist to assist market and other vender owners with loans, and there other advances in allocation--but the problem is that there are so many dependencies, which often continues to further the problem of adverse selection.   

COVID-19 Schematics: According to A. Krishnan, Haqdarshak has a comprehensive database of government and private welfare schemes which are meticulously researched and present in easy to understand and local language, to which they currently have 14-state-level platforms ready and are working to add more; and their schemes research is authentic, first-hand and tested at ground level.

The Government of India has a scheme, which allots for INR 2K [i.e. USD 26.74] in direct benefit transfers to registered construction workers, which serve as an immediate relief measure to all registered construction workers with a local registered trade union; and of which requires documents [i.e. proof of employment, construction labor card, and proof of bank account], and has an application process such that the money would be transferred to bank accounts of registered workers.

They have a scheme which provides a single point of contact to handloom weavers for addressing queries and providing guidance, to which a single point of contact to handloom weavers across the country for addressing queries and providing guidance is provided, whom weavers can call from anywhere in India, from any phone number; and is a service that’s provided during normal business hours 7 days a week in 7 languages [i.e. English, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada and Assamese (which is the typical language scheme for all schemes)]—and to which the funding amount for this scheme is undisclosed.

Here, there are no documents required for eligibility, but the application process entails calling a helpline, to which IT provides information about assistance on technical issues, guidance, raw material supply, access to credit facilities, quality control, access to marketing linkages, and information about various schemes and procedures to access benefits.

There is a scheme which provides for INR 1.5K [i.e. USD 20.05] in 3 installments for all women bank account holders having [a] specified bank account type[s], which were conditionally opened with a zero balance, which will be provided to tide over the crisis; and to which the amount would be deposited over the next 3 months [i.e. starting from April 2020] in 3 installments of INR 0.5K [i.e. USD 6.68].

With this scheme: the money is deposited directly in the account; beneficiaries can visit the issuing bank, ATM, or a banking correspondent point [i.e. post offices, village markets, etc.] in order to withdraw money; given the existence of a nationwide lockdown, banks [are] follow[ing] a staggered schedule to avoid a rush at the banks and to prevent crowding happening at the banks; the last digit of the bank account would determine the date people should visit the bank to withdraw; and after April 9, 2020, accountholders [can] withdraw on any date during normal banking hours.

There is a scheme for free gas cylinders to a specified provincial gas connection, to which gas connection holders will be provided with 3 free gas cylinders for free 3 months, which started in April 2020 and last[ed] 3 months.

Although there are no documents required, the application process entails that connection holders would receive money in their bank accounts, and all connection holders of the specific province providing the connection can then book gas cylinder refills by contacting their ministry, mobile service, service center, or gas websites and applications—to which 1 cylinder will be given per month, and the duration between booking 2 cylinders should be more than 15 days.

There is a scheme for relief to caste-based Farmers, where all farmers who are registered will be provided INR 2K [i.e. USD 26.74] in the first week of April 2020—to which out of the INR 6K [i.e. USD 80.21], the farmers are entitled to in a year, the first installment of INR 2K [USD 26.74] is front-loaded to help in COVID-19 recovery.

Regarding the application process, farmers who are enrolled, presumably in [a] specific caste[s] will receive benefits; the amount would be credited to their linked bank account; there is an option for new registration for farmers who are otherwise eligible for the scheme but have not registered for the scheme yet; and farmers can either approach an agricultural officer, register through a service center, or either through a website or android application.

Further, there is a scheme for social security relief in the amount of INR 1K [i.e. USD 13.37], in which the government will give all social security pension holders the specified amount to tide over difficulties during the next 3 months—to which although there are no documents required, beneficiaries who are already getting pensions will get the money in their bank accounts through a direct banking transfer.

Accordingly note that there are schemes provided for field-based and other personnel [e.g. most enumerators go door-to-door and help citizens discover and nominally apply for schemes, which becomes a revenue for the village-level entrepreneurs, given that clients receiving welfare assistance must also pay a nominal fee for the service rendered by Haqdarshak].

There is a scheme which provides free coaching material to chosen beneficiaries, which aims to assist girl students who aspire to pursue higher education in engineering and support them to prepare for the entrance examinations while studying at specific grade levels; and to which eligibility tends to be conditional on caste.

Required documents include proof of income [i.e. to which specific caste must provide income certificate showing the household income]; conditionally, applicants may have to submit proof of caste [i.e. if under reserved category]; proof of education, which indicative to a marksheet; and proof of identity [i.e. which includes a color passport size photo].

Regarding the application process, although they are currently closed at the moment, they must be fluent in reading a specific brochure in a specific language; fill the application form online by submitting their personal, educational and other details; take the printout or filled application form and have it duly verified from their school principal along with necessary documents; submit documents to the city coordinator and collect filed acknowledgement receipt of their application and keep it with themselves for later years; and eligibility also involves a minimum 70 percent marks at a specific grade level and 80 percent in Science and Mathematics, and a minimum cumulative grade point average of 8 and a grade point average of 9 in Science and Mathematics.

There is a scheme which provides INR 35K [i.e. USD 467.9] per month and INR 5K for travel and related expenses, which is designed to give young people within the range of 21 to 26 years of age experience in working the government, which is for a period of 11 months, and enables meaningful participation in policymaking, execution, monitoring and evaluation of schemes; and to which fellows will be equivalent to that of the grade of an officer in the government service.

Required documents include proof of identity and proof of education [e.g. previous exam marksheet]; and the application is done online, to which before applying, they are advised to keep ready the scanned images of their passport size photo and signature, of which guidelines for scanning and uploading and signature are explained; there is a INR 0.5 [i.e USD 6.68] application fee which has to be paid online, which will be considered successful only on the payment of the application fee; after successful submission, a soft copy of the application is automatically generated which has to be saved by the applicant for future reference, and of which is reviewed, such that eligible candidates are informed about the online examination by email.

CONCLUSION AND OTHER COVID-19 INFERENTIAL ISSUES: It is critical to our understanding, for us to note and understand that there are--what many would consider to be--drastic issues in underdeveloped environments that can be implied from the herein either contained and/or obtained information, particularly during a pandemic, and raises great concern with regards to community-targeting, data security, gender-based equality and inequality issues [i.e. cash transfers], and various unexpected findings and other observations from research as they relate to the transition from the steady normal state, to the epidemic and into the pandemic stages that this public health crisis has imposed on the global civil society.

Community Targeting Issues: Overall community targeting issues in the transition, according to Olken, include the fact that ethnic or religious minorities were not excluded, although it was a real concern such that details in the way randomized controlled experiments are ran matters greatly, in terms of who is included; the level at which it’s done matters, and high feasibility in small districts matter.

Specifically regarding India, A. Krishnan adds that limited budgets to spend on these relief measures is an issue, such that if as long as low discrimination exists, then feasibility tends to be pretty high, but if it tends to be high, then not only does feasibility becomes low, but advertently, adverse selection because high, and you begin to target all the wrong people.

Hanna also included that, none of the methods will be perfect when undergoing community targeting measures, and issues will exist—for instance, with the proxy-means-test, enumerators often miss certain areas within the community or the village that are often low caste and/or most marginalized, to which here, the question becomes whether community systems or other identification systems are more effective, and this results in unanticipated variables in the measure of elasticity; often there are mechanisms that are very weak, but the detail of data generated often very are strong, so trying to generate knowledge on how methods compare is essential.

Data Security Issues: S. Krishnan discussed previously, digitization is a way to improve delivery of entitlements, but with increasing digitization, the collection of personally identifiable information is an issue—for example, in India, there is a prevalently unethical issue of data being leaked, which has translated into the development of data privacy laws, etc.

To this, according to Hanna, from global experience, this is the tension of tradeoffs in that better data systems [e.g. more information] helps schemes work better and provides an underlying architecture that’s easy to identify people and find them and collect necessary information to provide the right kind of benefits; but there are very large concerns on the data security side, in that, for instance, if data is leaked or used for exclusionary purposes [e.g. there are political systems, which are imperfect], then the security of the data system depends on the ethics and surrounding how the data is actually used.

Despite how data issues should be handled, data security systems are often very fragmented and there needs to be a better way of how these systems are set up, in that there exists no centralized rules or provisions about how data sharing should be done, which makes it very ad hoc across different governments in that the rules are very different in different places; and such that there should be something more systematic about how it’s shared and used within government, how it’s shared and used within government, and how it’s used for researchers to be able to provide good advice to governments.

Hanna asserts that there are emerging conversations in mid-income States setting around data and how it gets consolidated; that in fact, in Indonesia, there was a push for centralized data rules about how governments share data with one another, which ended up not going as far because they are very challenging and is a different conversation to have; that in a recent panel discussion between the southeast Asian countries [i.e. Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, etc.], the discussion was being had because, for instance, with the COVID-19 crisis, one of the things people wanted to understand right away was whether people were having challenges buying food, and whether spending is going down [i.e. which is information that can come very easily from bank data, particularly for mid-income States, where people are using more mobile money], but no systems are in place to analyze it and/or to share it across ministries—and so the fact that this type of architecture doesn’t exist is making it very challenging to also get the real-time information in place, and therefore she thinks that the fact that these kind of conversations are happening, we should be having more of them.

Gender and Cash Transfer Parity during Pandemic: With regards to how to currently apply a gender lens to cash transfers, or particularly how it has been applied to these types of research work in terms of facilitating access to entitlements, note that A. Krishnan thinks that this is something governments realize ad hoc, and that a lot of the welfare is then focused towards gender; and she asserts that this was the case in a scheme in India, that with household women’s names’ daily being there, and when looking at the social context where the schemes are targeted, the women getting the benefit because it’s a perception, and to which for such perceptions, there are a lot of reasons, mainly to say that it’s a more responsible way to provide benefits to the household.

Because of schematic association, A. Krishnan has focused on many of the beneficiaries who are women and children, and minorities—therefore, she thinks that if there exists a limited budget for a particular scheme and prioritization is an issue, then the household woman is a good measure for it.

India is beginning to create data collection efforts that are reaching out to women--and phone numbers and other data were primarily linked to men, who are far more likely to own cell phones, so if a lot of the data collection is via cell phones, then this creates huge bias that India is working against.

Also, access to bank accounts in urban and other settlements with high population density issues—for example, in India, many have bank accounts where everyone’s allowed to open a «no-frills» «zero-balance account» [i.e. which is similar in Indonesia]—here, there exists an issue in slums where they face the issue of banks not opening these accounts at a scale that isn’t profitable.

Haqdarshak itself, tried to associate with a banking procedure with an Indian-based bank so that it could just simply improve efficiencies—and while it was more like a push to the banks, it was found that many of them were not really speeding up--but recently, they’ve noticed that «post office banking», which is a lightweight banking account, which are particularly attractive because their «touchpoints» are in most of rural India; and then they started opening accounts using mobile phones and other phone numbers, to which because of the lockdown, even the merchants have started trying to do this as opposed to physically going to the bank, which is powerful in that there’s embedded, the ability for the person seeking the service to directly push an «asynchronous request» such that there’s no one sitting at the other end entering information and it gets piled up, etc.

This design of being able to sit at your household helps a person to open a bank account and successfully see clear data remotely—and with this, the person can go to the post office for any other additional banking that they need to do; and by helping them create the access point, they can always go and withdraw money and other transactions, which is a very powerful way to bring in efficiencies, and at the same time, have a trustworthy touchpoint in rural India.

Hanna previously discussed research on bank accounts, and stated that if there exists vulnerability and limited funds are available, then female-headed households are incredibly important as a target, and people tend to give women agency and choice over social protection systems, which affect how they use it and/or whether or not they take it up in the first place [Field, E., et al., WP. No. 26294, «On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women’s Financial Control Affects Labor Supply and Gender Norms». 2019, NBER].

Secondly, it’s very important to not only gather information about the challenges families are facing, but also to take a gender lens and look at the differences between men and women in female-headed households—for example, Hanna’s work done in Indonesia [i.e. pre/inter COVID], her and other researchers were doing a rapid assessment survey every 2 weeks to get basic questions about unemployment, migration and food security, to which they stratified such that both males and females were surveyed, and they saw differences in terms of the level of food security for women as opposed to men; and she was really shocked by the fact that a policy advocate in Indonesia emailed them that they were the only surveyors that he had seen that actually collected differently for female-headed households for men and women; and given this, she thinks it’s not only the schematic design, but also how it’s collected.

With regards to how banks can be incentivized to help people actually get these «no-frill accounts» and keep them [i.e. which is a structural issue], it’s important to note that this is an emerging issue in research--the first issue is that often times, banks don’t find these accounts profitable; but the second issue is that to use these accounts, users often need to go to agents in local villages, and of who often don’t find these transactions very profitable.

This theoretically comes down to the issue of whether enough transactions are happening and at large enough scale which would generate enough profit: currently, in many countries, there is an equilibrium where there this isn’t the case and transactions are very much so still happening in that there are government programs where if everyone is given mobile money at once and they open them all at once, then it switches to a whole new equilibrium where everyone’s using them and it’ll become much more profitable than it will take off; and there exists research that’s starting to see this in some other areas [i.e. Indonesia], where no one’s using accounts, and to which agents in the field and the banks still have to find these extremely unprofitable—therefore Hanna thinks that there’s a need for a lot more research here, to understand how to jumpstart an equilibrium where enough people are using the systems, and that the systems are self-sustaining.

Olken added that it’s important to understand that different households are going to face these shocks differently—so this must be taken into account in the analysis and policy design.

Findings and Observations Unexpected: With regards to the unexpected findings and observations in various research that has been done previously and currently that attempt to answer the question of how to proceed transition-wise given the various constraints and restrictions imposed by coronaviruses and futuristically ex post COVID-19, note that A. Krishnan states that channeling the empathy that starts coming from the community into actually helping people access services [e.g. when there was a flood, then immediately, there is a rally of people]--and providing that space for community and civil society to converge and assist and not really keeping them at the steady vulnerable state such that they’re dependent on intimidating structures, was a bit surprising because people in some places really went out of their way to help communities.

A. Krishnan thinks that channelizing this community feeling and behavioral economies around opting out of things they don’t need such that having an inclusion process, if there’s a way where people can get to the point where they can choose to be excluded and make the decision to request to be extracted from the scheme, then building on their behavioral economies will help—which Haqdarshak would also like to see piloted in some way.

The most surprising thing for Olken was the degree to which this economic crisis has been both a rural and an urban phenomenon—for example, in the middle of March, when thinking about how they should think about this response, they initially said that social distancing measures will mostly affect urban areas, where people are sort of in the formal workforce, and factories and markets are getting shutdown.

It seemed that rural areas which typically were along and by themselves, should be better economically speaking—for example, farmers work on their own land, which doesn’t tend to present a problem—this is because the tracking surveys done in Indonesia, have found that while it is true that job loss is higher in rural areas as opposed to urban areas, that difference is actually much smaller than Olken tends to think one would have thought, and therefore the economic portion of this crisis seems to be really felt in rural areas as well, which wasn’t expected.

Hanna stated that when the crisis first hit, her team wanted to make sure everyone was safe, so they wanted to stay home and therefore they shutdown all their research—when isolated at home, questions arose of what can be done and how one can help when they can’t make it from point A to point B, even on the minute of scales, and more less on the broader.

She talks about how her and Olken had gotten so many requests from policymakers who were hungry for information about research and information—which was where she felt she was adding value, whereas others were trying to synthesize by adapting to different theories and other various concepts; and thinks that sometimes you have to go back and forth wondering whether the right thing was done as a researcher, but then it has to be realized just how important the research and the evidence really is during challenging times, when one really has to make tough decisions affecting people’s lives; and any bit of information regarding feedback, or just descriptive information regarding challenges people are thinking about how to fit their needs is extremely important, which [i.e. for her] reinvigorated what she could do to help and how the research [i.e. she does] can help.

Finally, S. Krishnan states that in pondering on partnerships and how they should’ve been at the core of the community response and the resilience that we’re seeing, she thinks that so many insights for ideas and the establishment of dynamic flexible and responsive social protection systems in these countries that have really been hard hit—not just by the pandemic, but by the pandemic response as well; and countries should think about having the social protection component because this automatically makes them linked to both the public health level and subsequent levels compliant with social distancing requirements.

Firstly, she thinks this the case because governments want different kinds of policies [i.e. that is, more universal policies during times of strict lockdowns]; and secondly, it makes it politically easier to impose the most appropriate of public health restrictions—for instance, several countries [i.e. United States, India, etc.] initially tried lockdown, which imposed lots of economic costs on citizens for a lockdown period [i.e. April and May], to which although an optimal level was attained, these places still are faced with high viral exposure rates, which have led to discussions of where in certain regions it’s necessary to undergo a «reset process».

To do these things, she states that it is extremely difficult from the political standpoint, due to the cost impositions of the first lockdown; and perhaps it’s easier to have subsequent lockdown policies if they’re automatically paired with a specific social response—the problem, however with this is that once these policies are started, then it becomes very difficult to renege on them; but again, if automatically paired, then it’s easier to institute a less generous transfer policy.

Lastly, she states that this economic policy isn’t perfect, because shocks have spilled all across the world in this case, but they have very important components which make them significant.