for the period 2012-2017 between 25 and 30 percent of households are HtM. For Japan, we ...nd that 18 percent of individuals are HtM and Hara et al. (2016) ...nd, following Kaplan et al.’s (2014) approach, that the share of HtM is about 13 percent for the years 1989-2009.

Appendix 2 provides further evidence regarding key characteristics about the nature and main characteristics of HtM and non-HtM. First, it shows evidence that while a vast majority of nonHtM individuals in the developed world would rely on savings to cope with a ...nancial shock, the top source of funding of individuals living in emerging markets would be aid from family, relatives, and friends. Furthermore, in both set of countries, few individuals would rely on selling assets for providing support, so illiquid wealth (such as real estate properties) does not seem to be important for dealing with a ...nancial shock. Second, and using information on whether individuals have a standing property loan, there is strong evidence that wealthy HtM individuals are also present in emerging markets (and not solely in developed countries). Interestingly, yet not surprisingly, while wealthy HtM represent an important share of all HtM individuals in developed countries, it is less the case in emerging markets where the HtM phenomenon is largely driven by poor HtM individuals. Lastly, this appendix analyzes whether the capacity to deal with a ...nancial shock varies across several plausible relevant economic and demographic, individual and household, characteristics. As in previous studies relying on data from developed countries, individuals living in households with higher income, greater educational attainment, male, and employed show a higher capacity to deal with a ...nancial shock, both in developed and in emerging countries (with even similar predicting capacity values among these groups of countries).

# 4.3 Evidence on allocation of social transfers

Figure 3 shows the share of social transfers reaching HtM individuals, �. This is the ...rst study showing evidence about this very important aspect of social transfer ...scal policy.<sup>26</sup> There is a much larger share of social transfers reaching HtM individuals in emerging countries. In fact, the average share of social transfers reaching HtM individuals is about twice as large in emerging countries as it is in developed countries (45.7 percent vs. 23.4 percent, with a statistically signi...cant di¤erence). For our sample of six Latin American countries, the average share of social transfers reaching HtM individuals is even larger, achieving 64.6 percent.

Figure 4 shows the relationship between the share of HtM individuals, �, (x-axis), and the share of social transfers reaching HtM individuals, �, (y-axis). Most countries, both developed and emerging, lie very closely to the 45 degree line, implying that the higher the share of HtM individuals, the higher the share of social transfers that reach HtM individuals.<sup>27</sup> Alternatively, Figure 5 shows

> 26 Naturally, there is a large related micro-literature focusing on how speci...c social programs can reach and impact vulnerable people based on their income levels, poverty status, and other socioeconomic/demographic aspects (e.g., Grosh, 1992; Gasparini et al., 2013; Cruces and Gasparini, 2012).

> 27 In fact, and based on a simple regression of � against �, we cannot reject the hypothesis that such a coe¢ cient equals statistically one for the whole sample of countries (as well as for industrial and emerging markets separately).

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