Neighborhood Effects in Integrated Social Policies
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 socia...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/449241491244326198/Neighborhood-effects-in-integrated-social-policies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26367 |
| Summary: | 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. In this article, spillover effects on take-up
behaviors are investigated in the context of a conditional
cash transfer program in rural Mexico. These effects are
identified using 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 is found to increase 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,
evidence is found suggesting that spillovers stem partly
from the sharing of information about the program among
eligible households. |
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