The impact of cash transfers across the economic spectrum

Cash transfers are an effective tool to alleviate poverty in lower income countries. By enabling people to flexibly meet their needs, cash transfers improve health, psychological well-being, education, and employment outcomes. Despite these documented benefits for people living in poverty, there is a dearth of research across diverse socioeconomic circumstances. In this dissertation, I examine how cash transfers influence people’s well-being across the global economic spectrum (i.e., people who are homeless, and people with low, middle, and high incomes). In Study 1, I use a cluster-randomized controlled trial to test the impact of an unconditional cash transfer of CAD$7,500 to each of 50 individuals experiencing homelessness, with another 65 as controls in Vancouver, BC. Over one year, cash recipients spent fewer days homeless, increased savings and spending with no increase in temptation goods spending, and generated societal net savings of $777 per recipient via reduced time in shelters. In Study 2, I document a potential barrier to implementing cash transfer policies for people experiencing homelessness: there is public mistrust toward the ability of homeless individuals to manage money. In Study 3, I test interventions to overcome this mistrust and increase public support for such a policy using messaging that highlights the benefits of cash transfers. These studies provide the first empirical evidence demonstrating the potential for cash transfers as a tool to address homelessness; but, do the benefits of cash transfers extend beyond those living in poverty? In Studies 4-5, I analyzed data from another randomized controlled trial to examine the impact of cash transfers with a diverse sample spanning the global economic spectrum. Two-hundred people from seven countries received cash gifts of $10,000 each, with another 100 as controls. In Study 4a, I show that cash recipients at most income levels experienced gains in well-being, but the gains were largest for lower-income recipients. In Study 4b, I find that cash recipients spent significant portions of the money generously on others, illustrating how benefits can spread through social networks. Overall, this research demonstrates that cash transfers are a flexible tool that can provide benefits across the economic spectrum.Arts, Faculty ofPsychology, Department ofGraduat