Are Conditional Cash Transfers Effective in Urban Areas? Evidence from Mexico

Jere Behrman, Jorge Gallardo-Garcia (), Susan Parker (), Petra Todd and Viviana Velez-Grajales ()
Additional contact information
Jorge Gallardo-Garcia: Bates White Consulting, Wash DC
Viviana Velez-Grajales: Inter-American Development Bank, IDB Headquarters, Wash DC

PIER Working Paper Archive from Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have spread worldwide as a new form of social assistance for the poor. Previous evaluations of CCT programs focus mainly on rural settings, and little is known about their effects in urban areas. This paper studies the short-term (one and two-year) effects of the Mexican Oportunidades CCT program on urban children/youth. The program provides financial incentives for children/youth to attend school and for family members to visit health clinics. To participate, families had to sign up for the program and be deemed eligible. Difference-in-difference propensity score matching estimates indicate that the program is successful in increasing school enrollment, schooling attainment and time devoted to homework and in decreasing working rates of boys.

Keywords: conditional cash transfer programs; matching estimators; program evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I28 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2011-08-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-ltv and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Journal Article: Are conditional cash transfers effective in urban areas? Evidence from Mexico (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pen:papers:11-024

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