within six months and leveled off afterwards. The Gini index in the entire study sample declined by almost four percentage points (pp), from 0.257 to 0.218 – a 15% decline in six months. Mean log deviation and the Theil index – GE (0) and GE (1) – declined by more than 25% during the same period. The declines in inequality are equally present in both the treatment and the control groups and are even larger after one year. Furthermore, the declines in inequality are robust to using balanced panels at each follow-up (Appendix Table 16). Cumulative distribution functions (CDF) for per capita consumption by treatment status at each follow-up are presented in Appendix Figure 5. We can see that the CDFs at each follow-up are well to the right of, i.e. first-order dominate, those at baseline, meaning that poverty declined unequivocally in both treatment and control for any poverty line up to $3.20. Using the $3.20 poverty line, the headcount index had declined by more than 50% in the entire study population after one year, from 25% to 12%, with reductions in poverty slightly larger among non-beneficiary households due to the changes in household composition discussed above (Table 7, column 1). However, poverty reduction using the $5.50 line that is commonly used for the Turkish population is much more modest in magnitude (column 2). While the analysis presented in Table 7 amounts to a before-after comparison of the welfare of the international refugee population in Turkey, it provides suggestive evidence that ESSN improved their circumstances in their new setting and did so quickly.<sup>33</sup>

**Table 7: Poverty and inequality indices across survey waves and treatment groups.**

||(1)<br>**FGT(0) -**<br>**$3.20 PL**|(2)<br>**FGT(0) -**<br>**$5.50 PL**|(3)<br>**GE (0)**|(4)<br>**GE (1)**|(5)<br>**Gini**|(6)<br>**N**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Baseline|||||||
|Overall|0.25|0.72|0.11|0.11|0.26|7745|
|Control|0.25|0.71|0.12|0.11|0.26|4109|
|Treatment|0.25|0.74|0.11|0.11|0.25|3636|
|6 months|||||||
|Overall|0.15|0.65|0.08|0.08|0.22|5840|
|Control|0.14|0.62|0.09|0.08|0.22|2978|
|Treatment|0.16|0.69|0.08|0.08|0.21|2862|
|12 months|||||||
|Overall|0.12|0.67|0.06|0.06|0.20|5494|
|Control|0.11|0.65|0.07|0.07|0.20|2745|
|Treatment|0.13|0.69|0.06|0.06|0.19|2749|
|18 months|||||||
|Overall|0.13|0.65|0.08|0.08|0.22|4447|
|Control|0.10|0.59|0.08|0.07|0.21|2184|
|Treatment|0.16|0.71|0.07|0.08|0.21|2263|

Note: Columns (1) and (2) contain the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty index FGT(α) with α=0, i.e. the poverty headcount, using the international poverty lines of $3.20 and $5.50 per day calculated using the 2011 ICP PPP, respectively; columns (3) and (4) contain inequality indices derived from the generalized entropy index GE (α) with α=0 in column (3), i.e. the mean log deviation index, and α=1 in column (4), i.e. the Theil index; Column (5) contains the Gini index; Column (6) shows the row sample size; Indices in the Overall row are for the full sample while Control and Treatment rows show the indices derived within each sample; all measures are calculated using the per capita consumption aggregate.

> 33 A study by Oxford Policy Management (2018) has also found the ESSN program to be cost-efficient, with a transferto-total budget ratio of more than 85%.

31