The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on Children´s School Achievement: Evidence from Colombia

Sandra García () and Jennifer Hill

No 5403, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: During the last decade, conditional cash transfer programs have expanded in developingcountries as a way to increase school enrollment and deter youth from dropping out of school. However, despite evidence of these programs´ positive impact on school enrollment and attendance, little is known about their impact on school achievement. Thus, using data from the Colombian conditional cash transfer program Familias en Acción, this study estimated the effect of the conditional subsidy on school achievement. It found that the program does have a positive effect on school achievement for children aged 7 to 12 living in rural areas but practically no effect for the same population living in urban areas. Moreover, the program may actually have a negative effect on the school achievement of adolescents, particularly those living in rural areas. Possible mechanisms of these effects are explored and discussed.

Keywords: policy analysis; student achievement; subsidies; conditional cash transfers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I28 I38 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48
Date: 2009-02-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-lab, nep-lam and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/8098/dcede2009-08.pdf

Related works:
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:col:000089:005403

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Universidad De Los Andes-Cede ().