Overall, GiveDirectly increased households’ assets, consumption, and food security. The program also improved psychological well-being, especially among households with female recipients and households that received the large transfer. GiveDirectly had no impact on health or education measures.

Economic impacts: GiveDirectly households significantly increased consumption by US$36.18 per month (23 percent), across a range of goods including food, medical and educational expenses, and social events. There was no increase in expenditures on temptation goods, such as alcohol and tobacco. Overall, the UCT had similar impacts regardless of transfer recipient and timing.

GiveDirectly households increased investments by US$278.52 (58.3 percent), in assets such as livestock, furniture, and metal roofs. GiveDirectly households were 23 percentage points more likely to have a non-thatched roof after the program, compared to 16 percent of households in the comparison group. Monthly-transfer recipients were less likely than lump-sum recipients to invest in these types of assets, suggesting that they were less able to save the UCT. Investments in income-generating activities (e.g., non-agricultural businesses and livestock) increased and revenues from these activities increased by US$16.64 per month (34 percent). However, estimated profits did not.

There were no effects on economic outcomes in spillover households compared to pure comparison villages, suggesting that the UCT had no major impact on the overall economic environment in GiveDirectly villages.

Psychological impacts: GiveDirectly households reported a 0.2 standard deviation increase (0.35 sd for large transfer recipients) on an index measuring psychological well-being. This improvement was largely driven by increases in happiness and life satisfaction, and reductions in stress and depression. There were no differences in self-reported measures between monthly-transfer and lump-sum recipients, but cortisol levels were significantly higher for monthly-transfer recipients. A potential explanation being that the monthly-transfer recipients seemed to have difficulty saving or investing the transfer, which may have led to increased stress.

Psychological well-being was 0.16 sd higher for GiveDirectly households with female recipients compared to GiveDirectly households with male recipients, driven largely by significantly lower cortisol levels; there were no other differences in outcomes among these households. One reason for this improvement in psychological well-being may be that female empowerment improved among these households (measured along indicators such as reduced domestic violence and increased female decision-making power), though results did not capture a significant increase on these measures.