Tobias Pfutze

Where Does the Money Go? Best and Worst Practices in Foreign Aid

Foreign aid from official sources to developing countries (excluding private aid) amounted to

The Effects of a Non-Contributory Pension Program on Labor Force Participation: The Case of 70 y Más in Mexico

103.6 billion in 2006 and has amounted to over

Social Pension Income Associated With Small Improvements In Self-Reported Health Of Poor Older Men In Colombia

2.3 trillion (measured in 2006 dollars) over the past 50 years. There have been fierce debates over how effective this aid has been or could be in the future (for example, Sachs, 2005; Easterly, 2006). However, this paper does not address the already ubiquitous issue of aid effectiveness — that is, the extent to which foreign aid dollars actually achieve their goals of reducing poverty, malnutrition, disease, and death. Instead, this paper focuses on “best practices�? in the way in which official aid is given, which is an important component of the wider debate.

Human Development Report 2006

We estimate the effect of 70 y Más, an age-conditioned cash transfer program for individuals age 70 and older in rural Mexico, on the labor force participation of beneficiaries and of younger individuals who live with them. Using data from the 2010 Mexican census, we exploit the age and locality population thresholds to identify the effects of the program, which at the time operated only in localities with less than 30,000 inhabitants. We find that the program reduces the labor force participation of elderly men, particularly those who live alone and who are relatively poor, but has a much weaker effect on that of elderly women. The program has no statistically significant effect on the labor force participation of either prime-age men or women who live with potential beneficiaries, and it has a negative and significant effect on the labor force participation of boys age 12–17, particularly those in the lowest wealth quintiles, but not on that of same-age girls. These results suggest that the program affects mostly the labor supply of the intended beneficiaries and that of marginal workers, like adolescent boys.

Does migration promote democratization? Evidence from the Mexican transition

The countries of Latin American are aging rapidly. Because most countries in the region lack adequate social protection systems, many Latin American governments have introduced noncontributory pension programs to reduce poverty and food shortages. This study assessed the effects of a large national noncontributory pension program on the health and health care use of older people in Colombia. Using an instrumental variables approach that exploited differential rollout of the program across municipalities, we found evidence that the program led to significant but small improvements in self-reported health and reductions in hospitalizations among men. No significant effects were found among women or among men for other health and health care use outcomes. A small noncontributory pension was associated with improvements in self-reported measures of health for vulnerable older men, but these effects are small in magnitude. Researchers and policy makers should assess ways to maximize the health benefits of cash transfers to poor older people.