We evaluate the large-scale pilot program of an innovative and major welfare intervention in Colombia, which combines home visits by trained social workers to households in extreme poverty with preferential access to social programs. We use a randomized control trial and a very rich data set collected as part of the evaluation to identify program impacts on the knowledge and take-up of social programs and the labor supply of targeted households. We nd no consistent impact of the program on these outcomes, possibly because the way the pilot was implemented resulted in very light treatment in terms of home visits. Importantly, administrative data indicate that the program has been rolled out nationally in a very similar fashion, suggesting that this major national program is likely to fail in making a significant contribution to reducing extreme poverty. We suggest that the program should undergo substantial reforms, which in turn should be evaluated.
Authors
CPP Co-Director
Orazio is an International Research Fellow at the IFS, a Professor at Yale and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Research Fellow Institute for Fiscal Studies
Laura is a Research Fellow at IFS. Her current work focuses on tax and social protection policy and programme evaluation in developing countries.
Research Fellow University College London
Pedro is a Professor of Economics at University College London and an economist in the IFS' Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice (cemmap).
Associate Director
I completed a PhD at UCL in 2020. My work examines the drivers of variation in the quantity and quality of healthcare provided to different patients.
Kai Barron
Journal article details
- Publisher
- The Brookings Institution
- Issue
- Volume 16, Issue 2, April 2016, pages 89-141
Suggested citation
Abramovsky, L et al. (2016). 'Challenges to promoting social inclusion of the extreme poor: evidence from a large scale experiment in Colombia' 16(2/2016), pp.89–141.
More from IFS
Understand this issue
Cutting inheritance tax isn’t quite as simple as its proponents suggest
20 November 2023
Retirement is not always a choice that workers can afford to make
6 November 2023
A mess has been made of Child Benefit, and the clear-up operation may not be easy
29 March 2024
Policy analysis
Living standards since the last election
21 March 2024
Scottish Budget: The medium-term outlook and choices
6 February 2024
Scottish Budget implies real-terms cuts to health spending – a fact not revealed in official documentation
6 February 2024
Academic research
The menopause "penalty"
18 March 2024
Evaluating pricing health insurance in lower-income countries: A field experiment in India
14 March 2024
Does the value-added tax add value? Lessons using administrative data from a diverse set of countries
9 February 2024