Resilience of Social Transfer Programs to Large Unexpected Shocks

Figures & data

Figure 1. Percentage of beneficiaries receiving food from the FFP.

Figure 2. Study timeline.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics: Percentage of respondents asked to pay bribe

	(1)	(2)
	March/April 2018	March/April/May 2020
Household level (N = 2,602)
% of respondents asked to pay bribe	0.038	0.176
Upazila level (N = 160)
% of Upazilas where any bribe was reported	0.269	0.886
% of respondents asked to pay bribe*
Mean (S.D.)	0.041 (0.116)	0.187 (0.149)

*First, percentages are calculated by UPZ and then descriptive statistics are calculated from the UPZ level data.

Table 2. Percentage of households receiving food and its determinants (Estimation of equation 1)

Variables	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
% of households (Change from March 2018)
in April 2018	−0.012*** (0.004)	−0.012*** (0.004)	−0.012*** (0.004)	−0.012*** (0.004)
in March 2020	−0.021** (0.008)	−0.021** (0.008)	−0.020** (0.008)	−0.025*** (0.008)
in April 2020	−0.224*** (0.013)	−0.224*** (0.013)	−0.224*** (0.013)	−0.229*** (0.013)
in May 2020	−0.474*** (0.015)	−0.474*** (0.015)	−0.474*** (0.015)	−0.478*** (0.015)
Bribe	−0.514*** (0.029)	−0.518*** (0.027)	−0.519*** (0.027)	−0.485*** (0.031)
UCF distance from district (in 10 km)	−0.003 (0.004)	−0.011** (0.005)	−0.029** (0.013)
Poverty (HCR)	0.032 (0.032)	1.138*** (0.202)	1.446*** (0.352)
Adjusted R-squared	0.404	0.424	0.425	0.434
Household characteristics	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Upazila fixed effects	No	Yes	Yes	No
Dealer characteristics	No	No	Yes	No
Household fixed effects	No	No	No	Yes
No. of obs. (N*T)	13,010	13,010	13,010	13,010

Note: Figures in parentheses are robust standard errors clustered at the UPZ level. ***, ** and * are statistical significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% level, respectively.

Table 3. Leakage in the FFP—percentage of rice allocated but NOT disbursed-Mean (Standard deviation) [median]

	(1)	(2)
	District level aggregation	Household level
March 2018	0.036 (0.042) [0.020]	0.040 (0.184)
April 2018	0.048 (0.053) [0.034]	0.053 (0.212)
March 2020	0.128 (0.079) [0.105]	0.130 (0.332)
April 2020	0.319 (0.090) [0.300]	0.332 (0.469)
May 2020	0.563 (0.099) [0.554]	0.580 (0.493)
March/April/May 2020	0.337 (0.200) [0.300]	0.348 (0.474)
All five periods	0.219 (0.214) [0.136]	0.227 (0.415)

Table 4. Leakage using administrative data on disbursement by district and survey data

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
	March 2020	April 2020	May 2020	All 2020
Total amount disbursed (in MT)	139498.8	139428.3	138074.9	417002
Total amount disbursed but not distributed (in MT)	16579.45 [11.89%]	43686.12 [31.33%]	78206.56 [56.64%]	138472.13 [33.21%]
Monetary loss (in million BDT)**	547.12	1441.64	2580.82	4569.58
District average (weighted) amount disbursed but not distributed (in MT)*	390.47	1061.66	1932.73	3384.86
Total amount disbursed but not distributed due to bribe (in MT)	2455.68 [1.76%]	6470.62 [4.64%]	11583.65 [8.39%]	20509.95 [4.92%]
Monetary loss due to demanding bribe (in million BDT)**	81.04	213.53	382.26	676.83

*Weights are based on the number of beneficiaries at the district level. Figures in parentheses are standard deviations. Figures in brackets are percentages.

**Based on BDT 33 (33,000) net gain per kg (MT) of rice for the beneficiaries. Source: DG Food.

Figure A1. Map of Bangladesh Showing the 175 Survey UPZs of Food Friendly Program Survey.

Table A1. Characteristics of households followed up in 2020 relative to the attrited sample in 2020 (households we could not reach)

	HH not included in 2020 sample (attrited)		HH included in 2020 sample		Pairwise t-test Mean difference
	(1)		(2)		(3)
Variable	Mean [SD]	N	Mean [SD]	N
Household is a permanent resident of the union	0.995	1903	0.996	2602	−0.001
	(0.002)		(0.001)
Household is poor according to PMT	0.843	1831	0.862	2540	−0.019*
	(0.008)		(0.007)
Household is functionally landless	0.916	1903	0.919	2602	−0.003
	(0.006)		(0.005)
Household has day labourer member	0.476	1903	0.493	2602	−0.018
	(0.011)		(0.010)
Household is female headed	0.150	1903	0.101	2602	0.048***
	(0.008)		(0.006)
Household exhibits any of the following characteristics:	0.181	1903	0.132	2602	0.049***
Widow/Divorced/Deserted	(0.009)		(0.007)
Household is eligible based on observable characteristics	0.978	1903	0.980	2602	−0.002
	(0.003)		(0.003)
Household is elderly headed	0.105	1903	0.088	2602	0.017**
	(0.007)		(0.006)
Household has disabled member	0.042	1903	0.032	2602	0.011*
	(0.005)		(0.003)
Household is VGD recipient	0.027	1903	0.028	2602	−0.000
	(0.004)		(0.003)
Household size	4.313	1903	4.504	2602	−0.191***
	(0.039)		(0.032)
Highest years of schooling among the household members	7.541	1903	8.487	2602	−0.946***
	(0.086)		(0.069)
Total land owned by the household	17.669	1903	17.106	2602	0.563
	(0.999)		(0.791)
Distance of the household from UPZ centre	7.655	1903	7.639	2602	0.016
	(0.115)		(0.087)
Distance of the household from Dhaka	144.530	1903	159.952	2602	−15.422***
	(1.702)		(1.504)
Population	25522.772	1884	25886.430	2602	−363.657
	(267.379)		(195.594)
Chairman of the union is from Awami league	0.784	1903	0.748	2602	0.036***
	(0.009)		(0.009)
Poverty head-count ration (upper poverty line)	0.275	1884	0.302	2602	−0.027***
	(0.004)		(0.003)
F-statistic of joint significance					8.33***