Education choices in Mexico: using a structural model and a randomized experiment to evaluate Progresa

Orazio Attanasio, Costas Meghir and Ana Santiago
Additional contact information
Ana Santiago: Institute for Fiscal Studies and Inter-American Development Bank

No W10/14, IFS Working Papers from Institute for Fiscal Studies

Abstract: In this paper we use an economic model to analyse data from a major social experiment, namely PROGRESA in Mexico, and to evaluate its impact on school participation. In the process we also show the usefulness of using experimental data to estimate a structural economic model. The evaluation sample includes data from villages where the program was implemented and where it was not. The allocation was randomised for evaluation purposes. We estimate a structural model of education choices and argue that without such a framework it is impossible to evaluate the effect of the program and, especially, possible changes to its structure. We also argue that the randomized component of the data allows us to identify a more flexible model that is better suited to evaluate the program. We find that the program has a positive effect on the enrollment of children, especially after primary school; this result is well replicated by the parsimonious structural model. We also find that a revenue neutral change in the program that would increase the grant for secondary school children while eliminating for the primary school children would have a substantially larger effect on enrollment of the latter, while having minor effects on the former.

Date: 2010-09-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab, nep-ltv and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1014.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1014.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1014.pdf [302 Found]--> https://ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1014.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Education Choices in Mexico: Using a Structural Model and a Randomized Experiment to Evaluate PROGRESA (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:10/14

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IFS Working Papers from Institute for Fiscal Studies The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emma Hyman ().