The Impact of Argentina’s Universal Child Allowance Cash Transfer Program on Children’s Educational Outcomes

Gastón Pierri, Universidad de Alcalá

This paper studies the impact of the Asignacio´n Universal por Hijo (AUH) Argentina's cash transfer program on the educational outcomes of children of recipient households. Particularly it focuses on the whether the educational conditionality of the transfers has had effects on reducing drop out from school and increasing the rates of grade advancement among students who remain in school. To assess impact, the paper utilize propensity score matching methods on data from the Encuesta Permanente de Hogares, a household survey that cover 60% of the Argentina population. The paper finds that the receipt of cash transfers has not significant effect on either drop out or grade advancement for the population as whole, but that a small negative effect on drop out and a positive effect on grade advancement can be detected for the northwestern and northeastern regions, two regions that are generally poorer and have worse education outcomes.