applications processed and checks delivered (van Ginneken, 1999). In Thailand, village elders identify the rural poor, mostly widows without children. This system may work well in some villages but one can imagine personal favoritism playing a role in others.

In a less traditional model, the process may be computerized. Based on data from household surveys, poor communities and their residents may be identified and given stipends. This method is being used in the Progresa program in Mexico, which targets poor rural villages and families using an econometric model that aggregates several socio-economic variables. The econometric model is structured to give heavy weight to families with children and to provide an incentive for these children to attend school. But old people also benefit-and the relative weights given to school-attending children versus the old becomes a political issue. This is approach is worth serious consideration in other countries.

Still a third method of means-testing involves self-selection: offer assistance in a form for which mainly low income people will apply. Self-selection can be achieved by requiring queues for receipt of cash benefits, a cost which high income people are less likely to be willing to incur, or by offering in-kind benefits such as free lunches that only low income people would accept. In many countries soup kitchens and/or dormitories accommodate the poorest old, often run by NGO's but financed by governments. NGO's may provide the service at lower cost and in a less bureaucratic way than the government, particularly when small scale ventures are involved. The advantage of self-selection is that it avoids the transactions costs and possible mis-identification of an application process. The disadvantage is that the benefit and quality level may not be optimal, and many old people may be unable to stand in queues to partake. At this stage, we don't really know which of these three methods entails higher transactions costs or greater exclusion of needy old people.

_Old versus young candidates for social assistance._ This raises a final issue concerning means-tested programs-should different criteria apply to old versus young people who are poor, and how much priority should be given to poor families with children versus the poor old? These two questions are interrelated.

On the one hand, some analysts argue that eligibility criteria should be more stringent for the young, since they can work, and should be encouraged to try to seek work, while the presumption is that the old cannot work, or have low productivity when they work. The old, therefore, can be offered social assistance without the labor disincentive effects that would be incurred by the young. Of course, the expectation of receiving assistance when old may discourage saving when young, a different type of disincentive problem. In Australia, the young who are unemployed and the old without adequate income and assets are guaranteed the same level of benefits, but with different eligibility criteria regarding efforts to find employment, since the presumption is that the young can work while the old can't. But the government in Australia feared that saving when young might be discouraged by its means and asset-tested age pension, so they recently established a contributory mandatory saving plan for workers. This will eventually 15