This event will be recorded.
The University of Pennsylvania Predoctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Research Methods for Field-based Research in Education, sponsored by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), welcomes Dr. Jere Behrman to our weekly seminar series.
Prospering through Prospera: Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Impacts on Educational Attainment and Achievement in Mexico
Presented by Dr. Jere Behrman, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Economics, University of Pennsylvania
This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model of student enrollment, school choice, academic achievement and grade progression to evaluate the impacts of Mexico's conditional cash transfer program Prospera on educational outcomes over grades 4-9. Academic achievement is measured by nationwide standardized test scores in mathematics and Spanish. Enrollment decisions are the outcomes of sequential decisions at each age from individuals' feasible choice sets, determined by the types of schools locally available and local-labor-market opportunities. The achievement production function has a value-added structure. Model parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood using nationwide administrative test-score data (the ENCEL data) combined with survey data from students and parents, census labor-market data, and geo-coded school-location data. The estimateion approach controls for selective school enrollment in different types of schools, grade retention and unobserved heterogeneity. The results show that the Prospera program increases enrollment and academic achievement for program beneficiaries in lower-secondary school (grades 7-9). The average test-score impacts are 0.09-0.13 standard deviations in mathematics and 0.03-0.05 standard deviations in Spanish. Students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds experience the largest impacts. The availability of telesecondary distance-learning schools is shown to be an important determinant of the Prospera program's impacts on educational outcomes.
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The IES Predoctoral Program’s weekly seminar series connects program fellows and affiliates to scholars and practitioners who engage in educational research and the development of research methods.
Seminars are likely of interest to doctoral students and faculty. If you are interested in attending virtually, please email Melanie Bahti for Zoom information.