Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have become the most important social policy in Latin America, and their influence has spread to countries around the world. A number of studies provide strong evidence of the positive impacts of these programs on the main targeted outcomes, education and health, and have proved successful in other outcomes such as nutrition, household income, and child labor. As we expect CCT programs to remain a permanent aspect of social policy for the foreseeable future, demand for evidence of the indirect effects of CCT programs has grown beyond the initial emphasis of these programs. My research pays particular attention to these relevant but unintended outcomes, which have been discussed less extensively in the literature. Familias en Accion (FA), a CCT program in Colombia, started operating in 2002 and has benefited approximately 1,500,000 households since its beginning. The results of the program’s evaluation survey, representative of poor rural households in Colombia, are a very good source or investigating not only the unintended effects of the program but also the microeconomic behavior of poor households and social policy issues in the country. Using a panel dataset from FA, I address three empirical policy questions: (i) to what extent is consumption of beneficiary households better insured against income shocks? (ii) has the program displaced child labor as a risk-coping instrument?, and (iii) are there any incentive effects of the cash transfers and the associated conditionalities on the labor supply of adults in recipient households? Each of my research questions is addressed separately; however, the results, taken together, can be informative in understanding the safety net value of the program and their potentialities to reduce poverty in the long term. I find that the program serves as an instrument for consumption smoothing. In particular, FA is effective in protecting food consumption, but not nonfood consumption, and it reduces consumption fluctuations in response to idiosyncratic shocks but not to covariate shocks. Results also reveal that FA works as insurance for the schooling of the poor but is not able to completely displace child labor. Finally, the results also show that beneficiary mothers are devoting more time to household chores and that girls and female adult labor are complementary. Male labor supply has increased while boys have increased leisure time as a response to the program.

Cette thèse a pour objectif d’approfondir l’analyse des conditions d’émergence et d’incidence de la corruption dans le monde. Nous y soulignons une dimension importante mais jusque-La peu documentée des activités de corruption, à savoir, leur contribution aux stratégies informelles d’adaptation et de gestion du risque mises en place par les agents économiques pour se protéger contre l’instabilité de leur revenu. Le premier chapitre propose un état des lieux de la recherche sur les définitions, les mesures, les typologies et les déterminants de la corruption. Dans le deuxième chapitre, les méthodes usuelles de calcul de l’instabilité macroéconomique sont expliquées, sont appliquées aux données sur les recettes d'exportation d’un échantillon de pays développes et en développement, et sont comparées entre elles. Le troisième chapitre présente et analyse une base de données rétrospectives sur l’Indice de Vulnérabilité Économique, reflétant le risque pour un pays de voir son développement entravé par des chocs naturels et des chocs d’exportations, que nous avons calculé pour un échantillon de 128 pays en développement et couvrant la période 1975- 2008. Dans le quatrième chapitre, nous analysons les effets de l’instabilité des exportations sur la corruption dans les pays développés et en développement. Ces effets sont décomposés en un effet ex post, résultant de l’expérience des agents économiques de l’instabilité des exportations, et un effet ex ante, résultant de leur perception de cette dernière. Nous testons empiriquement ces effets sur les perceptions de la corruption et sur les pots-De-Vin payés par les entreprises. Nous mettons en évidence des effets robustes, significatifs et non linéaires, dont le signe dépend de la fréquence et de la taille des chocs d’exportations. Nos résultats suggèrent également que la contrainte de liquidité est un canal transmission clé de ces effets: lorsque la contrainte de liquidité est forte l’instabilité des exportations aggrave l’incidence à la corruption, alors qu’elle la réduit lorsque cette contrainte se relâche. Ainsi, en l’absence d’État et de marches financiers capables d’atténuer les effets de l’instabilité sur les performances économiques et le bien-Être, il est probable que les agents économiques aient recours à la corruption pour se protéger contre les fluctuations économiques. / This thesis is an attempt to improve the understanding of the causes of corruption emergence and incidence around the world. It highlights an undocumented feature of corrupt transactions, that is, their contribution to informal risk-Coping and risk-Management mechanisms used by economic agents to protect against income fluctuations. We propose in a first introductory chapter a general state of art of researches on corruption definitions, measurements, typologies and determinants. In chapter two, we explain, apply and compare standard methods of computing instability indicators, using export revenue data from sample of developed and developing countries. In chapter three, we build a retrospective Economic Vulnerability Index – i.e. an index reflecting the risk for a country of seeing its development hampered by natural and trade shocks – for a sample of 128 developing countries over 1975-2008. In chapter 4, we analyse the effect of export instability on corruption in developed and developing countries. This effect is decomposed into an ex post effect, resulting from agents’ experience of export instability, and an ex ante effect, resulting from their perception of export instability. We test empirically these effects using data on corruption perceptions and on firms’ bribe payments. We find robust, significant and nonlinear ex post and ex ante effects of instability on corruption, and stress that their direction strongly depends on the frequency and size of export fluctuations. We show that the liquidity constraint is a key channel for these effects: when the liquidity constraint hardens, instability is found to foster corruption; while when it softens, instability is found to reduce it. Thus, corrupt strategies may act as a substitute for financial market imperfections and a low state capacity for mitigating the consequences of economic fluctuations on welfare.

Given the importance of agricultural income for rural households, erratic weather conditions pose an austere threat to these households' livelihoods. This thesis explores ways through which households in agrarian economies smooth their consumption, engage in community networks, and readjust their labour allocation in response to shocks. In a setting of inherent risk, absence of institutional insurance, and labour market inefficiencies, poor households are often left to their own devices to cope with risk. The aim of this study is to examine the different risk-coping strategies adopted by households in rural India, assess their effectiveness, and derive implications for public policy. The results suggest that, in an environment characterised by agro-climatic risk, households are able to self-insure and smooth their consumption in the face of income shocks. Their coping mechanisms, however, may reduce their resilience to future shocks. In fact, small landholders tend to rely more heavily on their productive asset stock, while medium landholders find it optimal to preserve and accumulate their productive assets when exposed to exogenous income shocks. Households also change their labour allocation and reduce their self-employment in agriculture. Furthermore, households in rural areas can migrate to urban areas or engage in societal risk-sharing arrangements to mitigate the risk. The results of this thesis suggest that being part of a community network discourages individuals' migration and increases the likelihood of undertaking riskier activities. The findings also confirm the importance of portfolio adjustments and the diversification of household assets in buffering consumption. These conclusions form the basis of several policy implications, the most important of which is providing formal insurance schemes to encourage the accumulation of assets, technology, and skills.