Long-Term Effects of PROSPERA on Welfare
The long-term effects of Mexico's conditional cash transfer program, PROSPERA, on poor households are of great interest to policy makers and academics alike. This paper analyzes the long-term effects on the welfare of the original participant...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/423621568052375850/Long-Term-Effects-of-PROSPERA-on-Welfare http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32376 |
| Summary: | The long-term effects of Mexico's
conditional cash transfer program, PROSPERA, on poor
households are of great interest to policy makers and
academics alike. This paper analyzes the long-term effects
on the welfare of the original participant households and
their offspring, about 20 years after the inception of the
program. To complement other studies that look into the
effects on schooling and health, the analysis focuses on a
utilitarian definition of welfare and employs two empirical
strategies. The first uses the 1997-2000 experiment as the
cleanest, albeit limited, source of variation. The analysis
finds that by 2017–18, the offspring of original beneficiary
households are more likely to have formed their own
households, to have migrated to different localities, and to
have more durable assets and larger consumption expenditures
than their control counterpart. The second strategy confirms
and expands those findings using a difference-in-difference
methodology based on the localities' rollout of the
program and the age of the individuals, as a proxy of
exposure. This second approach covers a much larger and
representative sample, while also directly observing
self-reported vulnerability in food consumption. The
findings confirm the generally positive outlook in terms of
durable assets and lower food vulnerability. Perhaps more
interestingly and relevant for evaluating the success of the
program is that it improved intergenerational mobility.
Using the 1997-2000 experiment, the analysis finds that the
young adults who benefited from the program improved with
respect to their parents in education, assets holding, and
income. They appear to be climbing the ladder of assets and income. |
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