This study examined shocks experienced by rural Nepali households during the COVID-19 pandemic and the results include that households mostly relied on credit, asset sales and savings to protect consumption, and that beneficiaries of a livestock livelihood program were 6 percentage points less likely to take out new loans as a means to cope.

This paper's model of consumption and asset accumulation shows that a hybrid social protection policy, which devotes resources to funding “state of the world contingent transfers” (SWCTs) to vulnerable, but non-poor households in the wake of negative shocks, can result in lower rates of poverty in the medium term than does a conventional cash transfer policy.