Antipoverty programs : impact evaluation, externalities and limitations

This doctoral thesis utilizes different microeconometric methods to estimate the direct impact, the generated externalities, and the limitations of two antipoverty programs implemented in Latin America in the form of Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT). I focus on CCT programs for two reasons. First, due to the important positive effects shown, many governments have rapidly adopted this tool as their main initiative to fight poverty. And second, CCTs are one of the very few initiatives that were actually generated in the developing world and later imported in developed economies. The thesis is comprised of three separate, but closely related chapters. I perform empirical analyses using data from two programs in Mexico and Colombia, employing program evaluation techniques, as well as parametric regression modelling. The main contribution of this thesis is to show that social interventions, besides having important effects on the targeted population, have also a great impact on people not part of the program. In fact, individuals respond to incentives, pushing a change in their decisions, either through monetary transfers, or by a change in the observed behavior of their peers. Thus, CCT programs can be expected to have an effect beyond the targeted group. The externalities shown by CCT are mainly positive, specially when analyzing health, nutrition and educational outcomes. The results are less clear when analyzing labor outcomes. Nevertheless, as any policy, these programs are perfectible. It is important to identify these limitations, as well as the changes to the designs for future work.