Income Shocks and Adolescent Mental Health
基于马拉维的现金转移实验,发现正向收入冲击显著降低了基线在校女生的心理困扰,但效果随家长获得的转移金额增加而减弱,且未受助女生出现心理困扰上升,项目结束后效应消失。
Abstract We investigate the effects of a positive income shock on mental health among adolescent girls using evidence from a cash transfer experiment in Malawi. Offers of cash transfers strongly reduced psychological distress among baseline schoolgirls. However, these large beneficial effects declined with increases in the transfer amount offered to the parents conditional on regular school attendance by the adolescent girls. Improved physical health, increased school attendance, personal consumption, and leisure contributed to the effects. There was also strong evidence of increased psychological distress among untreated baseline schoolgirls in treatment areas. All of these effects dissipated soon after the program ended.