IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/fcnddp/184.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program: the Nicaraguan Red de Protección Social

Author

Listed:
  • Maluccio, John A.
  • Flores, Rafael

Abstract

"This paper presents the main findings of a quantitative evaluation of the Red de Protección Social (RPS), a conditional cash transfer program in Nicaragua, against its primary objectives. These included supplementing income to increase household expenditures on food, reducing primary school desertion, and improving the health care and nutritional status of children under age 5. The evaluation design is based on a randomized, community-based intervention with measurements before and after the intervention in both treatment and control communities. Where possible, we erred on the side of assessing effects in conservative manners, for example, in the calculation of standard errors and the treatment of possible control group contamination. Overall, we find that RPS had positive (or favorable) and significant double-difference estimated average effects on a broad range of indicators and outcomes. Where it did not, it was often due to similar, smaller improvements in the control group that appear to have been stimulated indirectly by the program. Most of the estimated effects were larger for the extreme poor. The findings presented here played an important role in the decision to continue this effective program." Authors' Abstract

Suggested Citation

  • Maluccio, John A. & Flores, Rafael, 2004. "Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program: the Nicaraguan Red de Protección Social," FCND discussion papers 184, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
  • Handle: RePEc:fpr:fcnddp:184
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/156986
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan B. Krueger, 1997. "Experimental Estimates of Education Production Functions," Working Papers 758, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Newman, John & Rawlings, Laura & Gertler, Paul, 1994. "Using Randomized Control Designs in Evaluating Social Sector Programs in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 9(2), pages 181-201, July.
    3. Duncan Thomas & Elizabeth Frankenberg & James P. Smith, 2001. "Lost but Not Forgotten: Attrition and Follow-up in the Indonesia Family Life Survey," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(3), pages 556-592.
    4. Morley, Samuel & David Coady, 2003. "From Social Assistance to Social Development: Targeted Education Subsidies in Developing Countries," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number cgd376, May.
    5. Hoddinott, John & Skoufias, Emmanuel, 2004. "The Impact of PROGRESA on Food Consumption," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(1), pages 37-61, October.
    6. World Bank, 1997. "World Development Report 1997," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5980, August.
    7. James J. Heckman & Jeffrey A. Smith, 1995. "Assessing the Case for Social Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 85-110, Spring.
    8. Varangis, Panos & Siegel, Paul & Giovannucci, Daniele & Lewin, Bryan, 2003. "Dealing with the coffee crisis in Central America - impacts and strategies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2993, The World Bank.
    9. Haddad, Lawrence J. & Adato, Michelle, 2001. "How effectively do public works programs transfer benefits to the poor? evidence from South Africa," FCND discussion papers 108, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Paul Glewwe & Margaret Grosh, 2000. "Designing Household Survey Questionnaires for Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 25338, August.
    11. Gary Burtless, 1995. "The Case for Randomized Field Trials in Economic and Policy Research," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 63-84, Spring.
    12. Harold Alderman & Hans-Peter Kohler & Jere Behrman & Susan Watkins & John A. Maluccio, 2001. "Attrition in Longitudinal Household Survey Data," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 5(4), pages 79-124.
    13. Hoddinott, John F. & Yohannes, Yisehac, 2002. "Dietary diversity as a food security indicator," FCND discussion papers 136, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. Alan B. Krueger, 1999. "Experimental Estimates of Education Production Functions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 497-532.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Maluccio, John, 2005. "Coping with the “coffee crisis†in Central America: the role of the Nicaraguan Red de Protección Social," FCND discussion papers 188, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. John Maluccio, 2010. "The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on Consumption and Investment in Nicaragua," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 14-38.
    3. John A. Maluccio & Alexis Murphy & Ferdinando Regalia, 2009. "Does Supply Matter? Initial Supply Conditions and the Effectiveness of Conditional Cash Transfers for Grade Progression in Nicaragua," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0908, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    4. Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 845, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    5. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2013. "Contract Teachers: Experimental Evidence from India," NBER Working Papers 19440, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. repec:pri:cepsud:87krueger is not listed on IDEAS
    7. 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.
    8. Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 115, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    9. World Bank, 2005. "Shocks and Social Protection : Lessons from the Central American Coffee Crisis, Volume 1, Synthesis of Findings and Implications for Policy," World Bank Publications - Reports 8435, The World Bank Group.
    10. Vivian C. Wong & Peter M. Steiner, 2018. "Designs of Empirical Evaluations of Nonexperimental Methods in Field Settings," Evaluation Review, , vol. 42(2), pages 176-213, April.
    11. Guido W. Imbens, 2010. "Better LATE Than Nothing: Some Comments on Deaton (2009) and Heckman and Urzua (2009)," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 399-423, June.
    12. Edwin Leuven & Marte Rønning, 2016. "Classroom Grade Composition and Pupil Achievement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 1164-1192, June.
    13. Skoufias, Emmanuel & Shapiro, Joseph, 2006. "Evaluating the impact of Mexico's quality schools program : the pitfalls of using nonexperimental data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4036, The World Bank.
    14. Coleman, Brett E., 1999. "The impact of group lending in Northeast Thailand," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 105-141, October.
    15. Yamauchi, Futoshi & Nishiyama, Shinichi, 2005. "Community, inequality, and local public goods: evidence from school financing in South Africa," FCND discussion papers 201, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Andrew Leigh, 2003. "Randomised Policy Trials," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 10(4), pages 341-354.
    17. Jonah Rockoff, 2009. "Field Experiments in Class Size from the Early Twentieth Century," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 211-230, Fall.
    18. Ravallion, Martin, 2008. "Evaluating Anti-Poverty Programs," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 59, pages 3787-3846, Elsevier.
    19. Yamauchi, Futoshi, 2004. "Race, equity, and public schools in post-apartheid South Africa: is opportunity equal for all kids?," FCND discussion papers 182, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    20. Justine Burns & Malcolm Kewsell & Rebecca Thornton, 2009. "Evaluating the Impact of Health Programmes," SALDRU Working Papers 40, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    21. Alan Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 845, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..

    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:fpr:fcnddp:184. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.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.