Neighborhood Effects in Integrated Social Policies

Matteo Bobba and Jérémie Gignoux

No 16-662, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: When potential beneficiaries share their knowledge and attitudes about a policy intervention, their decision to participate and the effectiveness of both the policy and its evaluation may be influenced. This matters most notably in integrated social policies with several components. We examine spillover effects on take-up behaviors in the context of a conditional cash transfer program in rural Mexico. We exploit exogenous variations in the local frequency of beneficiaries generated by the program’s randomized evaluation. A higher treatment density in the areas surrounding the evaluation villages increases the take-up of scholarships and enrollment at the lower-secondary level. These cross-village spillovers operate exclusively within households receiving another component of the program, and do not carry over larger distances. While several tests reject heterogeneities in impact due to spatial variations in program implementation, we find evidence to suggest that spillovers stem partly from the sharing of information about the program among eligible households.

Keywords: spatial externalities; knowledge spillovers; peer effects; take-up of social policies; policy evaluation; conditional cash transfers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 J2 O2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-06, Revised 2016-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-ger and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Neighborhood Effects in Integrated Social Policies (2019)
Working Paper: Neighborhood effects in integrated social policies (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:30496

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