Are Conditional Cash Transfers Fulfilling Their Promise? Schooling, Learning, and Earnings after 10 Years
104 Pages Posted: 27 Mar 2017 Last revised: 2 Oct 2018
Date Written: March 2017
Abstract
Interventions promoting investment in child human capital are motivated by their potential to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. With this goal, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are the anti-poverty program of choice in many developing countries even though the evidence on their longer term objectives is inconclusive. This paper uses the randomized phase-in of a CCT program in Nicaragua to estimate long-term education, learning, and labor market effects for males 10 years after the start of the program. Gains in schooling and learning coincide with positive labor market returns including higher earnings, and demonstrate important long-term returns to CCTs.
Keywords: CCT, education, labor markets, learning, long-term effects
JEL Classification: I25, I28, I38, O12
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation