Alternative Transfer Schemes for Transferencias a Primera Infancia (TPI) in Urban Areas

JUNTOS is a CCT program in Peru that targets households under the poverty line. The base transfer (TB) amount, unchanged since the program's start in 2005, is 100 soles (33.4 USD in 2005, 26.22 USD in 2024) per month. Starting in 2021, the program expanded to cover all districts, including urban areas. At the same time, JUNTOS introduced the TPI, an additional monthly monetary transfer of 50 soles, specifically for households with pregnant women and newborns.

TPI introduces new conditionalities for households, which, along with those of the base transfer, form a comprehensive health package for pregnant women (including auxiliary exams, iron, and folic acid supplementation) and children up to 12 months old (vaccination schedule, hemoglobin testing, and age-appropriate iron supplementation). The TPI benefit ceases if households fail to meet one of the conditionalities or when the child exceeds 12 months.

The study aims to provide evidence on the marginal impact of an increase in the TPI amount compared to the current scheme. It will evaluate how these schemes affect child-level outcomes like anemia, malnutrition, and cognitive development and household-level outcomes such as food expenditure, consumption, and perceptions of well-being.

2024-05-02

2025-10-30

Household expenditure, household savings, health of children under 1-year-old, children's cognitive development in the long term

Still under consideration.

Compliance with conditionalities of the JUNTOS program: Including vaccination schedule, hemoglobin testing, and age-appropriate iron supplementation).

Still under consideration.

There will be two levels of randomization, one at the geographic level (clusters) and the second at the individual level. Cluster boundaries coincide directly with district boundaries. However, some large districts were subdivided into smaller sub-units, resulting in 230 clusters.

1. Cluster-level randomization): Clusters will be divided into two groups
1.1. Treatment (40%, 92 clusters): All households in these clusters will receive 80 soles.
1.2. Control (60%, 138 clusters): Clusters will receive 50 soles. Households can enter a lottery to receive 70 extra soles (see household randomization for details).

2. Household-level randomization: Within each cluster that receives 50 soles (defined as control in the cluster-level randomization), households will be randomized into two groups where treated households get an additional 70 soles and control households the status quo. Households will be divided into two groups.
2.1. Treatment (50% of 60%=30% of sample, 8,400 households): They receive 120 soles monthly.
2.2. Control (50% of 60%=30% of sample, 8,400 households): They receive 50 soles monthly.

Not available

Randomization will be done by a computer.

Two randomizations will be conducted to vary the transfer amounts.
1. Randomization at the cluster level
2. Randomization at the household level

Yes

230 clusters. Cluster boundaries coincide mostly with the boundaries of the 212 districts in the study. Large districts were further subdivided, resulting in 230 geographic regions referred to as clusters.

28,000 households

At the cluster level, 92 clusters will be assigned to the "high TPI base rate" condition (80 soles) and 138 clusters will be assigned to the status quo TPI base rate (50 soles)

At the household level, 8,400 households from the 138 status-quo clusters will receive an additional transfer of 70 additional soles. 8,400 households will continue to receive 50 soles.