UCLouvain Economics Seminar - Macours

November 03, 2016

12:45 - 2:00 PM

Louvain-la-Neuve

Doyen 22

Karen Macours

(PSE, Paris)

Schooling, Learning, and Earnings: Long-term Effects of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Nicaragua

Abstract: CCT programs have become the anti-poverty program of choice in many developing countries. Numerous evaluations, often based on rigorous experimental designs, leave little doubt that such programs can increase enrollment and grades attained±±in the short term. This paper uses the randomized phase-in of the RPS CCT program in Nicaragua to estimate the long-term effects on educational attainment and learning for boys , measured 10 years after the start of the program. We focus on cohorts aged 9-12 years at the start of the program in 2000 who, due to the program's eligibility criteria and prior school dropout patterns were likely to have benefitted more in the group of localities that were randomly selected to receive the program first. We estimate the long-term impacts using the experimental differential estimates and compare these results with difference-in-difference matching estimators for the absolute effects. Migrants were intensively tracked and we propose a new estimation method that incorporates information from this tracking process to correct for remaining selection. We find that the short-term increase in schooling for boys was largely sustained seven years after the end of the program and into early adulthood and find substantial gains in both math and language achievement scores. The program not only led to a differential impact on human capital, but also to increased labor market returns.

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