American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Age Set versus Kin: Culture and Financial Ties in East Africa
American Economic Review
vol. 114,
no. 9, September 2024
(pp. 2748–91)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
We study how social organization shapes patterns of economic interaction and the effects of national policy, focusing on the distinction between age-based and kin-based groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Motivated by ethnographic accounts suggesting that this distinction affects redistribution, we analyze a cash transfer program in Kenya and find that in age-based societies there are consumption spillovers within the age cohort, but not the extended family, while in kin-based societies we find the opposite. Next, we document that social structure shapes the impact of policy by showing that Uganda's pension program had positive effects on child nutrition only in kin-based societies.Citation
Moscona, Jacob, and Awa Ambra Seck. 2024. "Age Set versus Kin: Culture and Financial Ties in East Africa." American Economic Review, 114 (9): 2748–91. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211856Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H23 Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
- I12 Health Behavior
- I38 Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification