In this article we used data from the Mexican poverty alleviation program called PROGRESA (Programa de Educacion, Salud y Alimentacion) to examine whether eligibility for a cash transfer provided by the program conditional on children's regular school attendance and regular visits to health centers is also associated with increased consumption of food. We used a longitudinal sample of approximately 24,000 households from 506 communities. A distinguishing characteristic of this sample was that some of the communities were randomly selected for participation in PROGRESA, while the rest were introduced into the program at later phases. Exploiting this feature in our analysis, we found that eligible households in the villages covered by PROGRESA increased caloric acquisition compared with eligible households not receiving these benefits. By November 1999, median beneficiary households in treatment localities obtained 6.4% more calories than did comparable households in control localities. Perhaps even more significant, we found that the impact was greatest on dietary quality as measured by the acquisition of calories from vegetable and animal products--a finding consistent with the view of respondents themselves that PROGRESA was enabling them to "eat better."
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Volume (Year): 53 (2004) Issue (Month): 1 (October) Pages: 37-61 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:ucp:ecdecc:y:2004:v:53:i:1:p:37-61
Contact details of provider: Postal: The University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005 Chicago, IL 60637 Fax: (773) 753-0811 Email: Web page: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/EDCC/home.html
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)