Study Overview
Recent studies have linked transfers from Mexican conditional cash transfer programme Oportunidades (formerly PROGRESA) to improvements in child development (Fernald et al., 2008, 2009), but this work has been criticized as failing to account for endogeneity of the transfers. We create an exogenous instrument for the amount of transfers and use it to test programme and transfer effects. Applying the new instrument confirms that improvements in child development are more linked to the transfers themselves than to other portions of the programme, which involve medical check-ups as well as educational sessions for mothers.
Study Results
The effects of transfer amounts are stronger than the effects of 18 additional months on the program for all outcomes but the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, for which only program duration is significant. Higher transfer amounts are associated with both physical and cognitive development, being linked to improvements in height for age and on the verbal WASI scores. Effects are not statistically significant but point estimates are positive for the effects of additional transfers on BMI for age and for the cognitive performance WASI scale. We conclude that income, not information, is the key to achieving improvements in child development outcomes.
Intervention: Conditional cash transfer program