Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/290005 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-1303
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
Covering the full population of applicants to the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PATH), we explore whether receiving PATH benefits alters the academic returns to subsequently attending a more preferred public secondary school. To uncover causal associations, we exploit exogenous variation arising from both the PATH eligibility criteria and the centralized allocation process to public secondary schools within a double regression discontinuity design. Among girls, receiving PATH benefits before secondary school enrollment does not influence the academic gains from attending a more selective school. However, boys exposed to PATH experience significantly lower returns to subsequently attending a more selective school with respect to comparable peers who did not receive PATH. These results highlight the relevance of considering both the direct effects of conditional cash transfers and the potential indirect effects that such policies could convey through altering the effectiveness of other related policies.
Subjects: 
academic performance
conditional cash transfers
school selectivity
Jamaica
JEL: 
H52
H75
I21
I26
I28
I38
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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