GDI Lecture: 2,500 Years and Counting: The Historical Roots of Cash Transfers and Their Lessons for Today’s Debates
| Dates: | 5 February 2025 |
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| Times: | 16:30 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, General public |
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Speaker: Ugo Gentilini (World Bank)
Cash transfers (direct payments of money to people by the state) reach hundreds of million people worldwide. But when did they start, and how did they spread over countries and centuries? What did past practices look like, and how did they evolve? Why, despite compelling evidence, are policymakers sometimes sceptical about cash transfers? Drawing from Ugo Gentilini’s new book, Timely Cash: Lessons from 2,500 Years of Giving People Money (OUP), this talk explores those questions by tracing cash transfers over history, codifying diversity in experiences, and identifying recurrent patterns. In doing so, the volume helps illuminate the roots of modern cash transfer dilemmas and reveals how the past can offer surprising lessons for contemporary debates.
Ugo Gentilini serves as Lead Economist for Social Protection and Jobs at the World Bank. With 25 years of professional experience, his work combines empirical inquiry and policy design in countries across the income spectrum. Ugo’s numerous publications explore the intersection between social protection systems and a wide range of themes, such as labour markets, human development, crisis preparedness and response, food security and nutrition, urbanization, and humanitarian assistance. Before joining the World Bank, he spent a decade with the United Nations World Food Programme. Ugo holds a PhD in Development Economics and produces a weekly newsletter on social protection reaching a wide global audience (www.ugogentilini.net).
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