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The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from Brazil()

This paper examines the impacts of emergency cash-transfers on individuals’ social distancing behaviour and beliefs about COVID-19. We focus on the impacts of “Auxilio Emergencial” (AE): a large-scale cash-transfer in Brazil targeting low-income individuals who were unemployed or informally employed...

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Autores principales: de Leon, Fernanda L. Lopez, Malde, Bansi, McQuillin, Ben
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9968470/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36874911
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.01.006
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author de Leon, Fernanda L. Lopez
Malde, Bansi
McQuillin, Ben
author_facet de Leon, Fernanda L. Lopez
Malde, Bansi
McQuillin, Ben
author_sort de Leon, Fernanda L. Lopez
collection PubMed
description This paper examines the impacts of emergency cash-transfers on individuals’ social distancing behaviour and beliefs about COVID-19. We focus on the impacts of “Auxilio Emergencial” (AE): a large-scale cash-transfer in Brazil targeting low-income individuals who were unemployed or informally employed during the pandemic. To identify causal effects we exploit exogenous variation, arising from the AE design, in individuals’ access to the cash-transfer programme. Using data from an online survey, our results suggest that eligibility to the emergency cash transfer led to a reduced likelihood of individuals contracting COVID-19, likely to have been driven by a reduction in working hours. Moreover, the cash transfer seems to have increased perceptions about the seriousness of coronavirus, while also exacerbating misconceptions about the pandemic. These findings indicate effects of emergency cash-transfers in determining individuals’ narratives about a pandemic, in enabling social distancing and potentially in reducing the spread of the disease.
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spelling pubmed-99684702023-02-27 The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from Brazil() de Leon, Fernanda L. Lopez Malde, Bansi McQuillin, Ben J Econ Behav Organ Article This paper examines the impacts of emergency cash-transfers on individuals’ social distancing behaviour and beliefs about COVID-19. We focus on the impacts of “Auxilio Emergencial” (AE): a large-scale cash-transfer in Brazil targeting low-income individuals who were unemployed or informally employed during the pandemic. To identify causal effects we exploit exogenous variation, arising from the AE design, in individuals’ access to the cash-transfer programme. Using data from an online survey, our results suggest that eligibility to the emergency cash transfer led to a reduced likelihood of individuals contracting COVID-19, likely to have been driven by a reduction in working hours. Moreover, the cash transfer seems to have increased perceptions about the seriousness of coronavirus, while also exacerbating misconceptions about the pandemic. These findings indicate effects of emergency cash-transfers in determining individuals’ narratives about a pandemic, in enabling social distancing and potentially in reducing the spread of the disease. The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. 2023-04 2023-02-26 /pmc/articles/PMC9968470/ /pubmed/36874911 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.01.006 Text en © 2023 The Author(s) Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
de Leon, Fernanda L. Lopez
Malde, Bansi
McQuillin, Ben
The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from Brazil()
title The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from Brazil()
title_full The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from Brazil()
title_fullStr The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from Brazil()
title_full_unstemmed The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from Brazil()
title_short The effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the COVID pandemic: Evidence from Brazil()
title_sort effects of emergency government cash transfers on beliefs and behaviours during the covid pandemic: evidence from brazil()
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9968470/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36874911
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.01.006
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