Feed Thy Neighbour: How Social Ties Shape Spillover Effects of Cash Transfers on Food Security and Nutrition

Economic development in SubSaharan African countries is strongly tied to households’ ability to cope with exogenous events affecting their well-being. Using data from the Lesotho Child Grant Program (CGP) we provide evidence on the presence of any spillover effect of the program on non-eligible households living in treated villages and whether households’ food security and nutrition are influenced by the presence of a particular network structure. We take advantage of information on each household’s received and disbursed monetary transfers to build a set of indicators representing quantitatively and qualitatively the network architecture of each household. We find relevant spillover effects of the CGP on the food security and nutrition of non-eligible households living in treated villages and embedded in a social network. Geographical proximity seems to be strongly tied to positive spillover effects for food security and access to food.