The impact of a cash transfer program on cognitive achievement: The Bono de Desarrollo Humano of Ecuador
Juan Ponce and
Arjun Bedi
Economics of Education Review, 2010, vol. 29, issue 1, 116-125
Abstract:
Throughout Latin America, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs play an important role in social policy. These programs aim to influence the accumulation of human capital, as well as reduce poverty. In terms of educational outcomes, a number of impact evaluation studies have shown that such programs have led to an increase in school enrollment, ensured regular school attendance and led to a reduction in child labor. Theoretically, such cash transfer programs may also be expected to exert a positive impact on students' test scores, but related empirical evidence is scarce. Accordingly, this paper evaluates the impact of a cash transfer program, the Bono de Desarrollo Humano of Ecuador, on students' cognitive achievements. The paper uses a regression discontinuity strategy to identify the impact of the program on second grade cognitive achievement. Regardless of the specification and sample used, we find no impact of the program on test scores, suggesting that attempts at building human capital, as measured by cognitive achievement, require additional and alternative interventions.
Keywords: Cash; transfers; Test; scores; Regression; discontinuity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272-7757(09)00075-2
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
Working Paper: The Impact of a Cash Transfer Program on Cognitive Achievement: The Bono de Desarrollo Humano of Ecuador (2008) 
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:eee:ecoedu:v:29:y:2010:i:1:p:116-125
Access Statistics for this article
Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn
More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu (repec@elsevier.com).