Evaluating the Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs

By Laura B. Rawlings, Gloria M. Rubio. 2005

290 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Several developing economies have recently introduced conditional cash transfer programs, which provide money to poor families contingent on certain behavior, usually investments in human capital, such as sending children to school or bringing them to health centers. The approach is both an alternative to more traditional social assistance programs and a demand-side complement to the supply of health and education services. Unlike most development initiatives, conditional cash transfer programs have been subject to rigorous evaluations of their effectiveness using experimental or quasi-experimental methods. Evaluation results for programs launched in Colombia, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Turkey reveal successes in addressing many of the failures in delivering social assistance, such as weak poverty targeting, disincentive effects, and limited welfare impacts. There is clear evidence of success from the first generation of programs in Colombia, Mexico, and Nicaragua in increasing enrollment rates, improving preventive health care, and raising household consumption. Many questions remain unanswered, however, including the potential of conditional cash transfer programs to function well under different conditions, to address a broader range of challenges among poor and vulnerable populations, and to prevent the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

Subfields: Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4d64cae16cf2558129e6f8f634fbc2d4b4582796

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Safety Research

In Sociology and Political Science

In Soil Science

Citations in the corpus

Transfers in Cash and in Kind: Theory Meets the Data (2008, unknown): “Similar programs exist in Bangladesh, Colombia, Honduras, Jamaica, and Nicaragua (see Rawlings and Rubio, 2005 for a survey).”
For Protection and Promotion: The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets (2008, background): “This is also the case in Africa in Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia. Communities submit a list of potential projects to the administration of the social funds, which screens them for feasibility using cost-benefit analysis. When various ministries or government departments have implemented p”
Timing and Duration of Exposure in Evaluations of Social Programs (2008, unknown): “…PROGRESA program, payment records from an evaluation sample showed that 27 percent of the eligible population had not received beneﬁts after almost two years of program operation, possibly as a result of delays in setting up the program’s management information system (Rawlings and Rubio 2005).”
Children’s Schooling and Work in the Presence of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Rural Colombia (2010, unknown): “The upsurge in conditional cash transfer programs in developing countries has been matched by widespread evaluation of such programs, with the evidence all pointing to positive impacts on school enrollment (for a review, see Rawlings and Rubio 2005; and Handa and Davis 2006).”
Child education and work choices in the presence of a conditional cash transfer programme in rural Colombia (2006, background): “and all paint the same picture of positive impacts on school enrolment (for a review see Rawlings and Rubio, 2005 ).”
The Impact of Economic Resource Transfers to Women Versus Men (2012, background): “Much empirical and theoretical literature supports this programme design, suggesting that women are likely to use resources in ways that improve family well-being, especially that of children (e.g. Thomas, 1990; Haddad, Hoddinott and Alderman, 1997; Rawlings and Rubio, 2005; Handa and Davis, 2006).”
Government Transfers and Political Support (2009, unknown): “A leading question is why conditional cash transfer programs so often designate women as the transfer recipient (Rawlings and Rubio, 2005).”
Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program: the Nicaraguan Red de Protección Social (2004, background): “For example, because schooling outcomes are lower, the targeted population for school transfers was different from that used in PROGRESA.”
The Experience of Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin America and the Caribbean (2006, unknown): “See Ilahi et al. (2000), Rawlings (2004) and Rawlings (2005) for more general discussions of CCT programmes in Latin America.”
Education, Marriage, and Fertility: Long-Term Evidence from a Female Stipend Program in Bangladesh (2017, background): “2 Cash transfer given to secondary school students was about US$12 per child per month in Columbia, US$2532 per child per month in Mexico, and US$17 every 2 months per household in Nicaragua (Rawlings and Rubio, 2005).”
Welfare programs and labor supply in developing countries: experimental evidence from Latin America (2012, unknown): “The evidence concerning the relative shift of ineligibles toward agricultural labor is consistent with the finding of Skoufias et al. (2008) that the PAL program in Mexico induced workers to move away from agricultural work.”