Do School Subsidies Promote Human Capital Investment among the Poor?
نویسندگان
چکیده
We investigate the hypothesis that conditioning transfers to poor families on school attendance leads to a reallocation of household resources enhancing the human capital of the next generation, via the effect of the conditionality on the shadow price of human capital. We estimate the price effect of conditional transfers to mothers on intrahousehold allocations using data from a social program in Mexico, and show that price effects are large and statistically significant. The estimates suggest that household resources beyond those directly subject to conditionality have been reallocated favorably to children’s human capital. ∗Martinelli: Centro de Investigación Económica, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Camino Santa Teresa 930, 10700 México DF ([email protected]); Parker: División de Economı́a, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Carretera MéxicoToluca 3655, 01210 México DF ([email protected]). We thank Esther Duflo for a useful discussion that motivated subsection 3.5. Emilio Gutiérrez provided very competent research assistance.
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