Assistant Professor of Economics Mo Alloush recently presented research at the National Bureau of Economic Research Summer Institute in Cambridge, Mass. “Income and Corporal Punishment” explores secondary effects of cash transfer programs among the poor in Peru. The paper was co-authored with Professor of Economics Emily Conover and Susan Godlonton of Williams College.
The authors find significant changes in discipline practices of parents who receive conditional financial assistance through the Juntos program, and that mothers living in areas of Peru that become eligible for the Juntos program switched to less violent forms of punishment — away from hitting and toward forbidding activities.
This research contributes to a growing literature on the broad effects that social protection programs, such as conditional cash transfers, can have on recipients and their families — effects that may play a role in alleviating the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
Alloush said he and his co-authors are open to looking at these types of findings anywhere, including the U.S., but the type of data they have for Peru is not readily available.
