The Effect of Conditional Cash Transfers on the Prepaid and Postpaid Expenditures of Internet and Cellular Services: The Case of Filipino Households

• Main Authors: Caoile, Krisann Carmina G., Empeño, Edgar Desher P., Ramos, Raphael Manuel P., Trinidad, Marie Angeline A., Austria, Myrna S., Oplas, Ma. Ella, Tullao, Tereso S., Jr, Villamil, Winfred M.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2023
• Subjects: Philippines; Poverty; 4Ps; ICT; Behavioral Economics; Income Distribution; Public Economics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/res_aki/184; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/res_aki/article/1181/viewcontent/DLSU_AKI_Policy_Brief__2023_12_016.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Technology has been playing a large role in the lives of households regardless of income. How, then, do poor families value the importance of internet and cellular services due to the existence of outcome-improving or outcome-worsening effects associated with these services? At the same time, since the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) substantially affects its beneficiaries’ household expenditures, assessing its effectiveness concerning its objectives is important. Most literature on how poor households spend their cash transfers is centered on directly linked goods such as health and education. However, the relationship between CCTs and expenditures on goods that play a more indirect yet increasing role in the lives of poor households (e.g., internet and cellular services) has yet to be explored. Using the 2018 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) with the 4Ps program serving as the treatment, a propensity score matching methodology is applied to compare beneficiaries’ expenditures on prepaid and postpaid internet and cellular services with non-beneficiaries via Average Treatment Effects on the Treated (ATT).