IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cauapw/wp201902.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cash transfers and school enrolment

Author

Listed:
  • Sessou, Eric
  • Henning, Christian H. C. A.

Abstract

Using a randomized experiment in Mali, this study investigates whether Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) targeted to men and intended to reduce poverty and food insecurity impact children's schooling. Although the school-aged children are not the primary target of the program, we look to see if the transfers have any impact on the children's school enrolment. Results indicate that the transfers have no significant effect on school enrolment for children age 7-16. However, disaggregating by gender and age, results show the program increases girl's school enrolment at primary school by 8 percentage points and by 6 percentage points for primary school and low secondary school. There is so significant effect on boys' school enrolment. We provide potential mechanisms through which the UCT impacts school enrolment.

Suggested Citation

  • Sessou, Eric & Henning, Christian H. C. A., 2019. "Cash transfers and school enrolment," Working Papers of Agricultural Policy WP2019-02, University of Kiel, Department of Agricultural Economics, Chair of Agricultural Policy.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cauapw:wp201902
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/213419/1/1688164367.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moretti, Enrico, 2004. "Estimating the social return to higher education: evidence from longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 175-212.
    2. Birdsall, Nancy & Londono, Juan Luis, 1997. "Asset Inequality Matters: An Assessment of the World Bank's Approach to Poverty Reduction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 32-37, May.
    3. Sudhanshu Handa & Luisa Natali & David Seidenfeld & Gelson Tembo, 2016. "The impact of Zambia’s unconditional child grant on schooling and work: results from a large-scale social experiment," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 346-367, July.
    4. Jérôme Vandenbussche & Philippe Aghion & Costas Meghir, 2006. "Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 97-127, June.
    5. Kilburn, Kelly & Handa, Sudhanshu & Angeles, Gustavo & Mvula, Peter & Tsoka, Maxton, 2017. "Short-term impacts of an unconditional cash transfer program on child schooling: Experimental evidence from Malawi," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 63-80.
    6. de Brauw, Alan & Hoddinott, John, 2011. "Must conditional cash transfer programs be conditioned to be effective? The impact of conditioning transfers on school enrollment in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 359-370, November.
    7. Johannes Haushofer & Jeremy Shapiro, 2016. "The Short-term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: ExperimentalEvidence from Kenya," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1973-2042.
    8. World Bank, 2015. "The State of Social Safety Nets 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 22101, December.
    9. Alejandro J. Ganimian & Richard J. Murnane, 2014. "Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: Lessons from Rigorous Impact Evaluations," NBER Working Papers 20284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Sarah Baird & Craig McIntosh & Berk Özler, 2011. "Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1709-1753.
    11. Akresh, Richard & de Walque, Damien & Kazianga, Harounan, 2013. "Cash transfers and child schooling : evidence from a randomized evaluation of the role of conditionality," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6340, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cuadros-Meñaca, Andres & Thomsen, Michael R. & Nayga, Rodolfo M., 2022. "The effect of breakfast after the bell on student academic achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Tauli-Corpuz, Vicky & Alcorn, Janis & Molnar, Augusta & Healy, Christina & Barrow, Edmund, 2020. "Cornered by PAs: Adopting rights-based approaches to enable cost-effective conservation and climate action," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chong, Zhi Zheng & Lau, Siew Yee, 2023. "A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Educational Effects of Unconditional Cash Transfers," MPRA Paper 113587, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Francesca Marchetta & Tom Dilly, 2019. "Supporting Education in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges for an Impact Investor," Working Papers hal-02288103, HAL.
    3. Owusu-Addo, Ebenezer & Renzaho, Andre M.N. & Smith, Ben J., 2018. "Evaluation of cash transfer programs in sub-Saharan Africa: A methodological review," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 47-56.
    4. Ervin Prifti & Silvio Daidone & Greta Campora & Noemi Pace, 2021. "Government Transfers and Time Allocation Decisions: The Case of Child Labour in Ethiopia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 16-40, January.
    5. Baird, Sarah & McIntosh, Craig & Özler, Berk, 2019. "When the money runs out: Do cash transfers have sustained effects on human capital accumulation?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 169-185.
    6. Luis Henrique Paiva & Fábio Veras Soares & Flavio Cireno & Iara Azevedo Vitelli Viana & Ana Clara Duran, 2016. "The effects of conditionality monitoring on educational outcomes: evidence from Brazil’s Bolsa Família programme," Working Papers 144, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    7. Ma, Zhao & Bauchet, Jonathan & Steele, Diana & Godoy, Ricardo & Radel, Claudia & Zanotti, Laura, 2017. "Comparison of Direct Transfers for Human Capital Development and Environmental Conservation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 498-517.
    8. Zietz, Susannah & de Hoop, Jacobus & Handa, Sudhanshu, 2018. "The role of productive activities in the lives of adolescents: Photovoice evidence from Malawi," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 246-255.
    9. Bergstrom, Katy & Dodds, William, 2021. "The targeting benefit of conditional cash transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    10. Zaira Najam & Susan Olivia, 2021. "Does the impact of cash transfers differ across poverty measures? Evidence from Pakistan," Working Papers in Economics 21/09, University of Waikato.
    11. Najy Benhassine & Florencia Devoto & Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Victor Pouliquen, 2015. "Turning a Shove into a Nudge? A "Labeled Cash Transfer" for Education," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 86-125, August.
    12. Fiorella Benedetti & Pablo Ibarrarán & Patrick J. McEwan, 2016. "Do Education and Health Conditions Matter in a Large Cash Transfer? Evidence from a Honduran Experiment," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 759-793.
    13. Martin Ravallion, 2013. "The Idea of Antipoverty Policy," NBER Working Papers 19210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Scarlato, Margherita & D'Agostino, Giorgio, 2016. "The political economy of cash transfers: a comparative analysis of Latin American and sub-Saharan African experiences," IDOS Discussion Papers 6/2016, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    15. Noemi Pace & Silvio Daidone & Benjamin Davis & Luca Pellerano, 2016. "Does "soft conditionality" increase the impact of cash transfers on desired outcomes? Evidence from a randomized control trial in Lesotho," Working Papers 2016:33, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    16. Margherita Calderone, 2017. "Are there different spillover effects from cash transfers to men and women? Impacts on investments in education in post-war Uganda," WIDER Working Paper Series 093, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Federico Tagliati, 2019. "Child labor under cash and in-kind transfers: evidence from rural Mexico," Working Papers 1935, Banco de España.
    18. Bauchet, Jonathan & Undurraga, Eduardo A. & Reyes-García, Victoria & Behrman, Jere R. & Godoy, Ricardo A., 2018. "Conditional cash transfers for primary education: Which children are left out?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 1-12.
    19. Molina Millán, Teresa & Macours, Karen & Maluccio, John A. & Tejerina, Luis, 2020. "Experimental long-term effects of early-childhood and school-age exposure to a conditional cash transfer program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    20. Harold Alderman & Ruslan Yemtsov, 2014. "How Can Safety Nets Contribute to Economic Growth?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 1-20.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:cauapw:wp201902. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iakiede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.