Assessing the Long-term Effects of Conditional Cash Transfers on Human Capital : Evidence from Colombia
Conditional cash transfers are programs under which poor families get a stipend provided they keep their children in school and take them for health checks. Although there is significant evidence showing that they have positive impacts on school pa...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20110614094457 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3445 |
| Summary: | Conditional cash transfers are programs
under which poor families get a stipend provided they keep
their children in school and take them for health checks.
Although there is significant evidence showing that they
have positive impacts on school participation, little is
known about the long-term impacts of the programs on human
capital. This paper investigates whether cohorts of children
from poor households that benefited up to nine years from
Familias en Acción, a conditional cash transfer program in
Colombia, attained more school and performed better on
academic tests at the end of high school. Identification of
program impacts is derived from two different strategies
using matching techniques with household surveys, and
regression discontinuity design using a census of the poor
and administrative records of the program. The authors show
that, on average, participant children are 4 to 8 percentage
points more likely than nonparticipant children to finish
high school, particularly girls and beneficiaries in rural
areas. Regarding long-term impact on tests scores, the
analysis shows that program recipients who graduate from
high school seem to perform at the same level as equally
poor non-recipient graduates, even after correcting for
possible selection bias when low-performing students enter
school in the treatment group. Although the positive impacts
on high school graduation may improve the employment and
earning prospects of participants, the lack of positive
effects on test scores raises the need to further explore
policy actions to couple the program's objective of
increasing human capital with enhanced learning. |
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