American Sociological Review · 2024 · Kiara Wyndham Douds、Sarah K. Cowan
中文摘要
美国婴儿的健康状况逊于其他高收入国家的同龄婴儿，且其福祉在社会经济和种族化界线上极不平等。新生儿健康预示着成年后的福祉，这使这些不平等影响深远。寻求改善新生儿健康、减少不平等的政策制定者和学者近来将直接现金转移支付视为一种可行的干预手段。我们考察了美国唯一的无条件现金转移支付——阿拉斯加永久基金分红（Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend，简称PFD）——以了解向孕妇发放金钱能否改善其新生儿的健康。自1982年以来，阿拉斯加每年向居民发放一笔数额可观的分红。分红金额逐年变动，且相对于阿拉斯加居民和当地经济而言是外生的，这使我们能够作出因果推断。在考虑生育选择之后，我们发现孕期接受现金对新生儿健康没有实质性影响。现有理论聚焦于购买力与地位机制，以阐明金钱如何转化为健康，但无法解释这一零效应发现。本案例揭示了现有理论的一个缺陷：它无法为干预措施提供明确的预期。我们提出四个必须一并考量的要素，用以预测拟议的干预措施是否有效。
Abstract
Babies in the United States fare worse than their peers in other high-income countries, and their well-being is starkly unequal along socioeconomic and racialized lines. Newborn health predicts adult well-being, making these inequalities consequential. Policymakers and scholars seeking to improve newborn health and reduce inequality have recently looked to direct cash transfers as a viable intervention. We examine the only unconditional cash transfer in the United States, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), to learn if giving pregnant people money improves their newborns’ health. Alaska has paid its residents a significant dividend annually since 1982. The dividend’s size varies yearly and is exogenous to Alaskans and the local economy, permitting us to make causal claims. After accounting for fertility selection, we find that receiving cash during pregnancy has no meaningful effect on newborn health. Current theory focuses on purchasing power and status mechanisms to delineate how money translates into health. It cannot illuminate this null finding. This case illustrates a weakness with current theory: it does not provide clear expectations for interventions. We propose four components that must be considered in tandem to predict whether proposed interventions will work.