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Poverty dynamics and graduation from conditional cash transfers: a transition model for Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera program

The Journal of Economic Inequality volume 17, pages 219–251 (2019)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 09 November 2018

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Abstract

The effects of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) on poverty and well-being have been widely studied. However, there is limited knowledge on how a CCT should respond to the dynamics of poverty. How should program administrators treat beneficiaries that exit poverty in period t-1, but exhibit a high probability of falling into poverty in period t? This is a relevant, yet unanswered question. This paper provides an analysis of the implications of poverty dynamics in the implementation of graduation strategies of CCTs, taking Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) program as reference case. We propose a Markovian transition model that allows to control for unobserved heterogeneity, state dependence, and attrition. The model provides a framework for a generic graduation condition that can be applied to cash transfer programs that follow well-defined eligibility income thresholds. Overall, we find that only one-third of program beneficiaries that were poor in 2002 exhibited low probabilities of becoming poor in 2009–12 and therefore could be regarded as true ‘graduates’ of the program. We also find that the ‘recertification’ process of POP—which takes place every three years—would be more efficient if it took place every 3.7 and 5.1 years in urban and rural areas, respectively.

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  • 09 November 2018

    The original version of this paper contained a Ⓒline copyright The Authors. This should have been ⒸUNU-WIDER 2018.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Armando Barrientos, Finn Tarp, Tony Addison, Jukka Pirttilä, Saurabh Singhal, and participants at the internal seminars of UNU-WIDER in Helsinki and the 22nd Annual Meeting of the LACEA/IADB/World Bank/UNDP Research Network on Inequality and Poverty, in Santiago, Chile, for their useful comments on earlier versions of this paper. We gratefully acknowledge funding from UNU-WIDER. All the errors are ours.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, Arthur Lewis Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Juan M. Villa

  2. United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Katajanokanlaituri 6 B, FI-00160, Helsinki, Finland

    Miguel Niño-Zarazúa

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  1. Juan M. Villa
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Correspondence to Juan M. Villa.

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The original version of this paper contained a copyright line © The Authors. This should have been © UNU-WIDER 2018.

Appendix

Appendix

Fig. 3
figure 3

Expansion of POP’s coverage. Source: Authors based on the Social Assistance, Politics and Institutions (SAPI) database

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Table 5 Entry and exit criteria in selected CCTs operating in Latin America
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Table 6 Descriptive statistics
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Table 7 Transition probabilities estimates
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Villa, J.M., Niño-Zarazúa, M. Poverty dynamics and graduation from conditional cash transfers: a transition model for Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera program. J Econ Inequal 17, 219–251 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-018-9399-5

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Keywords

  • Poverty dynamics
  • Conditional cash transfers
  • Markovian models
  • Mexico