The study doesn’t appear to control for cash transfers received through access to M-Pesa. I was thinking about how much of the 0.012 increase in ln(consumption) was due to GiveDirectly cash transfers.
Back of the envelope:
M-Pesa access raises ln(consumption) by 0.012 for 45% of population (c.20m people).
0.012 * 20m = 234,000 unit increases in ln(consumption)
GiveDirectly gave c.$9.5m in cash transfers between 2012-14 to people with access to M-Pesa. [1]
GiveWell estimate each $ to GiveDirectly raises ln(consumption) by 0.0049
9.5m * 0.0049 = 46,000 unit increases in ln(consumption)
So GiveDirectly accounted for (very roughly) a fifth of the 0.012 increase in ln(consumption) due to M-Pesa.
[1] this is an overestimate as it assumes all transfers went to Kenya and none to Uganda
(Done in haste—may have got my sums / methodology wrong)
The study doesn’t appear to control for cash transfers received through access to M-Pesa.
Good point! I hadn’t thought about this at all. GiveDirectly’s cash transfers were very large, enough that $9.5m would go to 33k people ($288/person). The population was 43M, so 1 in 1300 people received money from GiveDirectly. Their sample size is just 1593, so you expect 0-2 GiveDirectly recipients. I think they should be pretty visible in the data? Might be worth writing to the authors.
It seems like you’re assuming that the GiveDirectly money would have gone only to the M-Pesa-access side of the (natural) experiment, but they categorized areas based on whether they had M-Pesa access in 2008-2010, not 2012-2014 when access was much higher.
GiveWell estimate each $ to GiveDirectly raises ln(consumption) by 0.0049
I didn’t notice that GiveWell had an estimate for this, and checking now I still don’t see it. Where’s this estimate from?
(In my post I just took their average amount transferred, figured out what effect that had on the average recipient’s income, and then discounted by .8 for GiveDirectly’s overhead.)
(My method gives an estimate of 0.0022 per dollar to GiveDirectly, so if GiveWell is estimating 0.0049 then my bottom line numbers are roughly 2x too high.)
It seems like you’re assuming that the GiveDirectly money would have gone only to the M-Pesa-access side of the (natural) experiment, but they categorized areas based on whether they had M-Pesa access in 2008-2010, not 2012-2014 when access was much higher.
Ah yes—that kind of invalidates what I was trying to do here.
I didn’t notice that GiveWell had an estimate for this, and checking now I still don’t see it. Where’s this estimate from?
It came from the old GiveWell cost-effectiveness analysis excel sheet (2015). “Medians—cell V14”. Actually looking at the new one the equivalent figures seems to be 0.26% so you’re right! (Although this is the present value of total increases in current and future consumption).
Thanks for this Jeff—a very informative post.
The study doesn’t appear to control for cash transfers received through access to M-Pesa. I was thinking about how much of the 0.012 increase in ln(consumption) was due to GiveDirectly cash transfers.
Back of the envelope:
M-Pesa access raises ln(consumption) by 0.012 for 45% of population (c.20m people).
0.012 * 20m = 234,000 unit increases in ln(consumption)
GiveDirectly gave c.$9.5m in cash transfers between 2012-14 to people with access to M-Pesa. [1]
GiveWell estimate each $ to GiveDirectly raises ln(consumption) by 0.0049
9.5m * 0.0049 = 46,000 unit increases in ln(consumption)
So GiveDirectly accounted for (very roughly) a fifth of the 0.012 increase in ln(consumption) due to M-Pesa.
[1] this is an overestimate as it assumes all transfers went to Kenya and none to Uganda
(Done in haste—may have got my sums / methodology wrong)
Good point! I hadn’t thought about this at all. GiveDirectly’s cash transfers were very large, enough that $9.5m would go to 33k people ($288/person). The population was 43M, so 1 in 1300 people received money from GiveDirectly. Their sample size is just 1593, so you expect 0-2 GiveDirectly recipients. I think they should be pretty visible in the data? Might be worth writing to the authors.
It seems like you’re assuming that the GiveDirectly money would have gone only to the M-Pesa-access side of the (natural) experiment, but they categorized areas based on whether they had M-Pesa access in 2008-2010, not 2012-2014 when access was much higher.
I didn’t notice that GiveWell had an estimate for this, and checking now I still don’t see it. Where’s this estimate from?
(In my post I just took their average amount transferred, figured out what effect that had on the average recipient’s income, and then discounted by .8 for GiveDirectly’s overhead.)
(My method gives an estimate of 0.0022 per dollar to GiveDirectly, so if GiveWell is estimating 0.0049 then my bottom line numbers are roughly 2x too high.)
Ah yes—that kind of invalidates what I was trying to do here.
It came from the old GiveWell cost-effectiveness analysis excel sheet (2015). “Medians—cell V14”. Actually looking at the new one the equivalent figures seems to be 0.26% so you’re right! (Although this is the present value of total increases in current and future consumption).