# **5 Results**

## **5.1 Nation-wide effect on lean-season food security**

We begin by presenting results from equation (1) which estimates the direct effect of the program on treated households and the indirect effect on untreated households.<sup>12</sup> The sum of the coefficients _β_ 1 + _β_ 2 ( _PWP_ and _PWP ∗ Top − up_ ) compares households in treatment villages that were themselves included in PWP to households in control villages. This total effect on top-ups is reported in the tables, along with 95 percent confidence intervals (upper and lower bounds). Table 4 displays the effect of the program on food security measured during the lean season (in survey round 2). Higher values indicate better food security for the first five measures and the PCA index, and lower values indicate better food security for outcomes in columns 6-8. Panel A contains results from the full sample. The total effect of the program on top-up households moves in the direction of worse food security for all measures: negative coefficients for the first five outcomes, positive coefficients for the next three outcomes, and a negative coefficient in column (9) for the PCA index. The effect on the PCA index is equivalent to one-tenth of a standard deviation of that outcome for households in control villages, but the coefficient – like those for all but one of the individual outcomes – is not statistically different from zero.

However, these differences are at least partially driven by pre-existing differences in food security. To account for this imbalance, we first limit the sample to the 159 villages covered by the IHS3 survey (Panel B) and and then include pre-treatment values of the outcomes (Panel C). In subsequent analyses, we will focus on estimates that correspond to Panel C, but we show all three specifications here for transparency.<sup>13</sup> The pattern and magnitude of the direct effect in the restricted sample in Panel B is very similar to the effects reported in Panel A. Including pre-treatment outcomes (purged of seasonal variation) from the IHS3 reduces the absolute value of the estimated effects by between one quarter and one third (Table 4, Panel C). Treated households have worse food security than households in villages without any public works programs for six of eight measures, but none of the differences are statistically different from zero. The point estimate of the effect on the summary index is is very close to zero, and we can rule out any pos-

> 12Our ITT estimates are of the effect of being randomly chosen for inclusion in the PWP program, not of participating in the program. A small number of households were not randomly chosen to be included in the program but were eligible through village selection procedures. In our specification, these households pooled with the untreated households. One might expect village chosen beneficiary households to have either better outcomes than untreated households, because of the effect of the program, or worse outcomes, if the poorest households were indeed chosen and the program was not enough to offset their relative disadvantage.

> 13An alternative to the ANCOVA-style specifications in Panel C is to include the PCA index of food security from the IHS in all of the food security regressions. Results are very similar when controlling for baseline variation in this way; results are available upon request.

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