Policy-Induced Social Interactions and Schooling Decisions

This paper considers a conditional cash transfer program targeting poor households in small rural villages and studies the effects of the geographic proximity between villages on individual enrollment decisions. Exploiting variations in the treatment status across contiguous villages generated by the randomized evaluation design, the paper finds that the additional effect stemming from the density of neighboring recipients amounts to roughly one third of the direct effect of program receipt. Importantly, these spatial externalities are concentrated among children from beneficiary households. This suggests that the intervention has enhanced educational aspirations by triggering social interactions among the targeted population.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Inter-American Development Bank
Other Authors: Matteo Bobba
Format: Working Papers biblioteca
Language:English
Published: Inter-American Development Bank
Subjects:Social Development, Education, Public Administration, Rural Development, C9 - Design of Experiments, I2 - Education and Research Institutions, J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor, O2 - Development Planning and Policy, Spatial externalities, Social interactions, Peer effects, Conditional cash transfers,
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0011367
https://publications.iadb.org/en/policy-induced-social-interactions-and-schooling-decisions
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