A Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) found that beneficiary households experienced an overall improvement in welfare. For example, the program reduced the likelihood of beneficiaries selling their belongings by 3.3 percentage points and increased the likelihood of buying food by 4.4 percentage points. Positive effects on emotional health, such as reduced anxiety and sleeping difficulties, were also observed, and beneficiaries were 7.4% more likely, compared to the control group, to support government cash transfer programs [1].
However, the initiative had no impact on intimate partner violence (reported by women who lived with their partners during quarantine). Regardless, the authors caution that the lack of effects on this variable may have been influenced by the fact that the follow-up conducted by the research project was only short-term.
The study evaluated the effectiveness of the program in a sample of 3,462 households that were already beneficiaries of Familias en Acción and were randomly selected to participate in an RCT. Of these households, 1,730 received the VAT refund, while 1,732 were assigned to the control group.