Results are reported in Table 3. The coefficients on the indicators for the two 4Ps groups provide the difference between the non-4Ps and each 4Ps sub-group at baseline – all small in magnitude and statistically insignificant. During the pandemic, a gap emerges – but primarily for 4Ps who had received a 4Ps transfer in the last month, whose increase in depression was 12 percentage points smaller than that of the non-4Ps (a 33 percentage point increase). In other words, our main results seem to be driven by recent recipients of social protection benefits. Although the baseline wave does not ask households about their most recent receipt of the 4Ps transfer, based on variation in survey dates and expected transfer disbursement dates, we find no evidence of a similar pattern at baseline (see Appendix section A.3). Taken together, these results suggest that the continued 4Ps transfers played some role in protecting 4Ps beneficiaries from even larger increases in depression and that this form of social protection generated larger protective effects in pandemic compared to normal times.

# **4.3.2 Heterogeneity by SAP Receipt Timing**

Another important explanation is that the 4Ps may have enhanced the effectiveness of the SAP by allowing for more timely delivery of the emergency cash transfer. Almost all 4Ps households in our sample (those who receive their 4Ps payments through a cash card) should have had access to their SAP payment by the beginning of April, whereas the median non-4Ps household did not receive their SAP transfer until the end of April (see Figure 4 for the entire distribution of dates). In April 2020, the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 18%, more than three times higher than the pre-pandemic level, and almost 20% of total jobs were lost due to the lockdown measures (according to the Philippine Statistics Authority). Overall fear of the virus and uncertainties about employment and incomes were prevalent. In such an environment, receiving a timely cash transfer, soon after the implementation of strict quarantine rules, could have had protective effects for the mental health of 4Ps beneficiaries.

In addition, cash transfer timing may have also had important implications for food insecurity, which is well-documented to be positively correlated with mental health problems (Alloush and Bloem, 2022; Cole and Tembo, 2011; Fang et al., 2021; Jones, 2017; Pourmotabbed et al., 2020; Rahman et al., 2021). As we show in the second panel of Figure 4, unlike trends in employment, income, and remittances, trends in food insecurity do appear different for the 4Ps and non-4Ps.<sup>7</sup> In wave 1 (the first survey wave that included food security questions), food insecurity rates were higher for non-4Ps (0.6) compared to 4Ps households (0.52).<sup>8</sup> This was a period when most 4Ps households had received their SAP transfer but most non-4Ps households had

> 7We view food insecurity as a potential explanation for our results rather than a threat to identification because food insecurity is likely to have been directly affected by participation in the 4Ps program, due to the timely distribution of transfers to the 4Ps.

> 8In a regression that controls for wave and household fixed effects, this difference is significant at the 10% level (the last column of Appendix Table A8).

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