Ex-Ante Evaluation of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs
Ex-Ante Evaluation of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs

Author: Francois Bourguignon

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Cash transfers targeted to poor people, but conditional on some behavior on their part - such as school attendance or regular visits to health care facilities - are being adopted in a growing number of developing countries. Even where ex-post impact evaluations have been conducted, a number of policy-relevant counterfactual questions have remained unanswered. These are questions about the potential impact of changes in program design - such as benefit levels or the choice of the means - test - on both the current welfare and the behavioral response of household members. Bourguignon, Ferreira, and Leite propose a method to simulate the effects of those alternative program designs on welfare and behavior based on microeconometrically estimated models of household behavior. In an application to Brazil's recently introduced federal Bolsa Escola program, the authors find a surprisingly strong effect of the conditionality on school attendance, but a muted impact of the transfers on the reduction of poverty and inequality levels. This paper - a product of the Poverty Team, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the impact of policies on the distribution of incomes.

Ex-ante evaluation of conditional cash transfer programs : the case of bolsa escola
Ex-ante evaluation of conditional cash transfer programs : the case of bolsa escola

Author: François Bourguignon

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13:

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Cash transfers targeted to poor people, but conditional on some behavior on their part, such as school attendance or regular visits to health care facilities, are being adopted in a growing number of developing countries. Even where ex-post impact evaluations have been conducted, a number of policy-relevant counterfactual questions have remained unanswered. These are questions about the potential impact of changes in program design, such as benefit levels or the choice of the means-test, on both the current welfare and the behavioral response of household members. This paper proposes a method to simulate the effects of those alternative program designs on welfare and behavior, based on microeconometrically estimated models of household behavior. In an application to Brazil's recently introduced federal Bolsa Escola program, the authors find a surprisingly strong effect of the conditionality on school attendance, but a muted impact of the transfers on the reduction of current poverty and inequality levels.

Conditional Cash Transfers to Improve Education and Health
Conditional Cash Transfers to Improve Education and Health

Author: Ranjeeta Thomas

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13:

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This paper uses baseline data from the randomized experiment of the conditional cash transfer program - Red de Protección Social, Nicaragua to conduct an ex ante evaluation and compares results to those of the experimental evaluation. Reduced form estimation of a behavioural model using a health production framework forms the basis of the evaluation. A Klein and Spady semi-parametric single index model is used to predict unobserved outcomes under the treatment. The sample consists of children aged 7-13 who have not completed grade 4. The evaluation shows that the ex ante approach closely matches the experimental outcomes in the case of girls and over predicts the impact for boys.

Conditional Cash Transfers, Adult Work Incentives, and Poverty
Conditional Cash Transfers, Adult Work Incentives, and Poverty

Author: Emmanuel Skoufias

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 38

ISBN-13:

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"Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim to alleviate poverty through monetary and in-kind benefits, as well as reduce future levels of poverty by encouraging investments in education, health, and nutrition. The success of CCT programs at reducing poverty depends on whether, and the extent to which, cash transfers affect adult work incentives. The authors examine whether the PROGRESA program of Mexico affects adult participation in the labor market and overall adult leisure time, and they link these effects to the impact of the program on poverty. Using the experimental design of PROGRESA's evaluation sample, the authors find that the program does not have any significant effect on adult labor force participation and leisure time. Their findings on adult work incentives are reinforced further by the result that PROGRESA leads to a substantial reduction in poverty. The poverty reduction effects are stronger for the poverty gap and severity of poverty measures."--World Bank web site.

How Good Are Ex Ante Program Evaluation Techniques? The Case of School Enrollment in PROGRESA
How Good Are Ex Ante Program Evaluation Techniques? The Case of School Enrollment in PROGRESA

Author: Fabian Bornhorst

Publisher: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND

Published: 2009-09-01

Total Pages: 35

ISBN-13: 9781451873344

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This paper evaluates a microsimulation technique by comparing the simulated outcome of a program with its actual effect. The ex ante evaluation is carried out for a conditional cash transfer program, where poor households were given money if the children attended school. A model of occupational choice is used to simulate the expected impact of the program. The results suggest that the transfer would indeed increase school attendance and do more so among girls than boys. While the simulated effect tends to be larger than the actual effect, the latter lies within bootstrapped confidence intervals of the simulation.

Ex Ante Evaluation of Social Programs
Ex Ante Evaluation of Social Programs

Author: Petra Todd

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 33

ISBN-13:

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This paper discusses methods for evaluating the impacts of social programs prior to their implementation. Ex ante evaluation is useful for designing programs that achieve some optimality criteria, such as maximizing impact for a given cost. This paper illustrates through several examples the use of behavioral models in predicting the impacts of hypothetical programs. Among the programs considered are wage subsidy programs, conditional cash transfer programs, and income support programs. In some cases, the behavioral model justifies a completely nonparametric estimation strategy, even when there is no direct variation in the policy instrument. In other cases, stronger modeling and/or functional form assumptions are required to evaluate a program ex ante. We illustrate the application of ex ante evaluation methods using data from the PROGRESA school subsidy experiment in Mexico. We assess the effectiveness of the method by comparing ex ante predictions of program impacts to the impacts measured under the randomized experiment.

Evaluating the Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs
Evaluating the Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs

Author: Laura B. Rawlings

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13:

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Unlike most development initiatives, conditional cash transfer programs recently introduced in the Latin America and the Caribbean region have been subject to rigorous evaluations of their effectiveness. These programs provide money to poor families, conditional on certain behavior, usually investments in human capital-such as sending children to school or bringing them to health centers on a regular basis. Rawlings and Rubio review the experience in evaluating the impact of these programs, exploring the application of experimental and quasi-experimental evaluation methods and summarizing results from programs launched in Brazil, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Evaluation results from the first generation of programs in Brazil, Mexico, and Nicaragua show that conditional cash transfer programs are effective in promoting human capital accumulation among poor households. There is clear evidence of success in increasing enrollment rates, improving preventive health care, and raising household consumption. Despite this promising evidence, many questions remain unanswered about the impact of conditional cash transfer programs, including those concerning their effectiveness under different country conditions and the sustainability of the welfare impacts.