Abstract:
In response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020-21 the South African government instituted various economic relief and stimulus programmes. These included substantial increases to social grant disbursements and a large new targeted jobs programme. Potential “spillover” or “multiplier” effects of these programmes are an important part of prospective policy evaluation and are of particular interest during a period of fiscal constraints. This review considers approaches for quantitatively evaluating stimulus effects of government programmes, with particular reference to the South African pandemic response. After discussing the general approach of random and quasi-random programme evaluation methods, we review the existing international literature evaluating stimulus effects of jobs programmes and cash transfers. We highlight key lessons in terms of methods, data requirements, and the necessity of rigorous local evaluations. We also describe the South African programmes and discuss local data sources. We suggest that the social grant top-ups and jobs programme present an exciting opportunity to credibly measure programme stimulus effects in South Africa.
Description:
We are grateful for comments on this paper from Murray Leibbrandt and Kate Philip, and for inputs which informed this work from Karthik Muralidharan, Daniel Riera-Crichton, participants of the first and second workshops on measuring stimulus effects, and the BankservAfrica team. We thank the Project Management Office (PMO) in the South African Presidency, Sharmi Surianarain of the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, and Agence Française de Développement (AFD) for assistance in organising and facilitating the workshops on stimulus effects. This review is an input into a joint project of the PMO, AFD and SALDRU concerned with evaluating the stimulus effects of income transfer programmes such as the Presidential Employment Stimulus and 2020-21 social grant top-ups in South Africa.
