  We use a randomized experiment to compare a workforce training program to
cash transfers in Rwanda. Conducted in a sample of poor and underemployed
youth, this study measures the impact of the training program not only relative
to a control group but relative to the counterfactual of simply disbursing the
cost of the program directly to beneficiaries. While the training program was
successful in improving a number of core outcomes (productive hours, assets,
savings, and subjective well-being), cost-equivalent cash transfers move all
these outcomes as well as consumption, income, and wealth. In the head-to-head
costing comparison cash proves superior across a number of economic outcomes,
while training outperforms cash only in the production of business knowledge.
We find little evidence of complementarity between human and physical capital
interventions, and no signs of heterogeneity or spillover effects.
