Job Market Paper Pensions, payment delays and well-being Evidence on social protection programmes mostly evaluates average effects under the implicit assumption that transfers are delivered without constraints. Far less is known about how implementation quality — and in particular payment reliability — shapes programme impacts in practice. We study Mozambique’s flagship pension programme, the Programa de Subsídio Social Básico (PSSB), and examine how payment delays moderate the pension’s welfare effects for elderly beneficiaries. Using linked survey and administrative data and a fuzzy regression discontinuity design based on age eligibility, the analysis separates the causal effect of pension receipt from the role of delivery delays. The results indicate that average pension effects across well-being outcomes are generally small, but highly sensitive to payment timing: estimated impacts weaken substantially as delays increase, especially for food security and overall well-being. This delay gradient is more pronounced for women than for men. Together, the findings highlight that payment reliability is a central determinant of realised programme effects rather than a secondary administrative detail.
Manufacturing enterprises. For the past several years, I have built and led one of Mozambique’s most detailed enterprise research projects. Working closely with national partners, I coordinated five survey waves, incl. two RCTs, with manufacturing firms, tracing how small businesses are affected by and adapt to shocks, navigate the path toward formality, interact with government, and how they access finance.
Youth skills and employment. This study assesses youth’s numeracy, literacy, logical reasoning, and team-work skills to examine how skills certificates affect job-search behaviour and employment (see PAP). The baseline round has been collected (see blog), and we are now planning the follow-up for April 2026 with NGO MUVA who collected the baseline data.
Mangroves. I am co-PI of a study quantifying how urbanisation affects mangrove loss in Mozambique; supported by seed funding from the International Growth Center (IGC).
Hanna Berkel | Applied Microeconomist | Evidence for Policy 