Duh-De-Duh-Duh-Double Duh

A couple of months ago, we reported on a charity called GiveDirectly that's trying to help poor people in the developing world in an unusual way: by sending them money with no strings attached. The idea behind this is simple. Poor people know what they need, and if you give them money they can buy it.

But to some veterans of the charity world, giving cash is worrisome. When we first reported on this we spoke with Carol Bellamy, who used to run UNICEF, and who said people might spend the money on things like alcohol or gambling.

To see whether this was actually happening, researchers did an experiment. They surveyed people in Kenya who received money from GiveDirectly, and a similar group of people who didn't get money.

The results from the study are encouraging, says Johannes Haushofer, an economist at MIT's Poverty Action Lab who was one of the study's co-authors.

"We don't see people spending money on alcohol and tobacco," he says,...