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This paper evaluates the long-term impacts of the national conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines on beneficiaries who were exposed to it during a relatively short but potentially critical period of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. The paper estimates the impacts of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program on men and women who were enrolled in the program for up to 1.5 years when they were between ages 12.5 and 14 and are currently in their early twenties. The analysis finds evidence of impacts on marriage and fertility for women: participation in the program is associated with delay in marriage and the first birth of approximately one year and six months, respectively. No impacts are found on educational or labor market outcomes or proxies for economic welfare. Further, there is no strong and consistent evidence of changes in empowerment or gender norms.

Adolescence --- Conditional Cash Transfers --- Gender --- Gender and Development --- Poverty Reduction --- Randomized Intervention --- Women's Empowerment

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In recent years, the Philippines has seen a rapid expansion of health insurance coverage, especially among the poor. In particular, the implementation of the 2012 Sin Tax Law, which increased tobacco and alcohol excise tax and earmarked most of the incremental revenues for PhilHealth premium subsidies for indigent households, contributed to an increase in the number of families receiving government-subsidized health insurance from 5.2 million to 15.3 million poor families and senior citizens between 2012 and 2015. This paper assesses how people who are eligible for government-subsidized (free) health insurance through Philippines Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) find out about their eligibility and their benefits, and also how well people know the PhilHealth benefits.

Conditional Cash Transfers --- Health Care Services Industry --- Health Economics & Finance --- Health Insurance --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Industry

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How does a locally-managed conditional cash transfer program impact trust in government? On the one hand, delivering monetary benefits and increasing interactions with government officials (elected and appointed) may increase trust. On the other hand, imposing paternalistic conditions, leading some to experience feelings of social stigma or guilt, and potentially permitting capture by local elites could reduce trust. This paper answers this question by exploiting the randomized introduction of a locally-managed transfer program in Tanzania in 2010, which included popular election of community management committees to run the program. The analysis reveals that cash transfers can significantly increase trust in leaders. This effect is driven by large increases in trust in elected leaders as opposed to appointed bureaucrats. Perceptions of government responsiveness to citizens' concerns and honesty of leaders also rise; these improvements are largest where there are more village meetings at baseline. One of the central roles of village meetings is to receive and share information with village residents. One indicator that governance may have improved is that records from school and health committees are more readily available in treatment villages. Notably, while the stated willingness of citizens to participate in community development projects rises, actual participation in projects and the likelihood of voting does not. Concerns that local management of a cash transfer program will destroy trust in government or reduce the quality of governance appear unfounded-especially in high-information contexts.

Community Meetings --- Conditional Cash Transfers --- Decentralization --- Governance --- Information --- Local Government --- Poverty Reduction --- Service Delivery --- Social Development --- Trust

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Conditional cash transfers are programs under which poor families get a stipend provided they keep their children in school and take them for health checks. Although there is significant evidence showing that they have positive impacts on school participation, little is known about the long-term impacts of the programs on human capital. This paper investigates whether cohorts of children from poor households that benefited up to nine years from Familias en Accion, a conditional cash transfer program in Colombia, attained more school and performed better on academic tests at the end of high school. Identification of program impacts is derived from two different strategies using matching techniques with household surveys, and regression discontinuity design using a census of the poor and administrative records of the program. The authors show that, on average, participant children are 4 to 8 percentage points more likely than nonparticipant children to finish high school, particularly girls and beneficiaries in rural areas. Regarding long-term impact on tests scores, the analysis shows that program recipients who graduate from high school seem to perform at the same level as equally poor non-recipient graduates, even after correcting for possible selection bias when low-performing students enter school in the treatment group. Although the positive impacts on high school graduation may improve the employment and earning prospects of participants, the lack of positive effects on test scores raises the need to further explore policy actions to couple the program's objective of increasing human capital with enhanced learning.

Academic Achievement --- Conditional Cash Transfers --- Education --- Education For All --- Learning Outcomes --- Primary Education --- Public Sector Development --- School Completion --- Secondary Education --- Teaching and Learning --- Tertiary Education

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This paper compares the ex ante simulation of the impacts of conditional cash transfer programs against the ex post estimates of impacts obtained from experimental evaluations. Using data on program-eligible households in treatment areas from the same baseline surveys that are used for experimental evaluations of conditional cash transfer programs in Mexico and Ecuador, the authors use a micro-simulation model to derive ex ante estimates of the impact of the programs on enrollment rates and poverty. The estimates reveal that ex ante predictions of certain impacts of conditional cash transfer programs match up well against the benchmark estimates of ex post experimental studies. The findings seem to support the use of this model to assess the potential impact and cost efficiency of a conditional cash transfer program ex ante, in order to inform decisions about how the program would be designed.

Conditional Cash Transfers --- Experiments --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Microsimulation --- Poverty Monitoring & Analysis --- Poverty Reduction --- Primary Education --- Science Education --- Scientific Research & Science Parks --- Youth and Governance --- Ecuador --- Mexico