Neighborhood Effects in Integrated Social Policies

When potential beneficiaries share their knowledge and attitudes about a policy intervention, their decision to participate and the effectiveness of both the policy and its evaluation may be influenced. This matters most notably in integrated social policies with several components. In this article, spillover effects on take-up behaviors are investigated in the context of a conditional cash transfer program in rural Mexico. These effects are identified using exogenous variations in the local frequency of beneficiaries generated by the program's randomized evaluation. A higher treatment density in the areas surrounding the evaluation villages is found to increase the take-up of scholarships and enrollment at the lower-secondary level. These cross-village spillovers operate exclusively within households receiving another component of the program, and do not carry over larger distances. While several tests reject heterogeneities in impact due to spatial variations in program implementation, evidence is found suggesting that spillovers stem partly from the sharing of information about the program among eligible households.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Bobba, Matteo, Gignoux, Jeremie
Format:	Working Paper biblioteca
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2017-04
Subjects:	SOCIAL POLICY, SPATIAL EXTERNALITIES, KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVER, CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS, POLICY EVALUATION, TAKE-UP, POPULATION DENSITY,
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/449241491244326198/Neighborhood-effects-in-integrated-social-policies https://hdl.handle.net/10986/26367
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