Educational Impacts and Cost-Effectiveness of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in Developing Countries: A Meta-Analysis / Sandra García, Juan Saavedra.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

García, Sandra.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Saavedra, Juan.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w23594.

NBER working paper series no. w23594

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Educational Impacts and Cost-Effectiveness of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in Developing Countries

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2017.

Summary:

We meta-analyze for impact and cost-effectiveness 94 studies from 47 conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs in low- and middle-income countries worldwide, focusing on educational outcomes that include enrollment, attendance, dropout and school completion. To conceptually guide and interpret the empirical findings of our meta-analysis, we present a simple economic framework of household decision-making that generates predictions, all else constant, for the association between certain program context and design characteristics, and impact estimates. We also present a simple model for the analysis of program costs, using it to compute cost-effectiveness estimates for a subsample of CCT programs. For all schooling outcomes, we find strong support for heterogeneity in impact, transfer-effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness estimates. Our meta-analytic results of impact and transfer-effectiveness estimates provide support to some - but not all - of the predictions from the household decision-making model.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2017.