The Heterogeneous Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers

Last registered on July 06, 2014

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

The Heterogeneous Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0000317

First published

May 30, 2014, 9:21 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

July 06, 2014, 7:22 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

Honduras

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Sebastian Galiani

Affiliation

University of Maryland

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Patrick J. McEwan

PI Affiliation

Wellesley College

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

1999-10-01

End date

2002-10-02

Keywords

Education

Additional Keywords

Honduras, conditional cash transfers, education, child labor, randomized experiment

JEL code(s)

H00

Secondary IDs

Abstract

The Honduran PRAF experiment randomly assigned conditional cash transfers to 40 of
70 poor municipalities, within five strata defined by a poverty proxy. Using census data, we show that eligible children were 8 percentage points more likely to enroll in school and 3 percentage points less likely to work. The effects were much larger in the two poorest strata, and statistically insignificant in the other three (the latter finding is robust to the use of a separate regression-discontinuity design). Heterogeneity confirms the importance of judicious targeting to maximize the impact and cost-effectiveness of CCTs. There is no consistent evidence of effects on ineligible children or on adult labor supply.

External Link(s)

Working Paper

Registration Citation

Citation

Galiani, Sebastian and Patrick J. McEwan. 2014. "The Heterogeneous Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers." AEA RCT Registry. July 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.317-3.0

Former Citation

Galiani, Sebastian and Patrick J. McEwan. 2014. "The Heterogeneous Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers." AEA RCT Registry. July 06. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/317/history/2084

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The municipalities were randomly allocated into four groups:

Group 1 (G1) families received health and education transfers
Group 2 (G2) families received health and education transfers; schools and health centers received transfers
Group 3 (G3) only schools and health centers received transfers
Group 4 (G4) served as a comparison

Intervention Start Date

1999-10-02

Intervention End Date

2002-10-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

student participation, gender

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Gender: The program had different impacts on the work patterns of boys and girls. Boys who received the transfer worked less outside of the home, while girls who received the transfer worked less inside the home.

Lowest income families: The impacts of the program were highest among the lowest income families. Child height-for-age was used as a poverty proxy to determine which municipalities would be eligible for the CCT program. This same proxy was used to determine the poorest households within the municipalities. Among the bottom forty percent of households, enrollment increased by 16 to 32 percent, child labor decreased by 50 to 55 percent, and work inside the home decreased by 38 to 46 percent.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Under PRAF-II, a revamp of the first Programa de Asignación Familiar (PRAF), eligible families could receive two kinds of cash transfers. An education transfer of 812 Lempiras/year (about US$50) was available to families with children ages 6 to 12 who were enrolled and regularly attended grades 1-4. A health transfer of 644 Lempiras/year (about US$40) was available to families with children under 3 and pregnant mothers who regularly attended health centers. In practice, school enrollment (but not attendance) was enforced as a condition of the payments, while no health benefits were suspended for failure to attend health centers.

PRAF-II also planned to give cash transfers to schools and health centers of US$4,000 and US$6,000 respectively. However, the distribution of these funds was extremely limited in practice, mostly due to legal hurdles in forming community groups authorized to administer funds.

To target the program, municipalities were ranked based on average height-for-age scores of first graders, and the bottom 70 municipalities were selected for inclusion. The municipalities were then randomly allocated into four groups (as mentioned above under intervention details). For those municipalities in the treatment group, cash transfers were made available for children aged 6-12, who had not yet completed 4th grade.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

N/A

Randomization Unit

municipalities

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

70 municipalities

Sample size: planned number of observations

120,411 students

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

G1: 20 municipalities with 38,435 students
G2: 20 municipalities with 39,065 students
G3: 10 municipalities with 14,154 students
G4: 20 municipalities with 28,757 students

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

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