An Experiment in Poverty Reduction and Child Development

描述(由申请人提供)：我们建议评估 墨西哥独特的关于健康和认知发展的反贫困计划 年幼的孩子。这项名为Progresa的计划结合了传统的现金转账 对家庭进行人力资本投资的财政激励计划 (健康、教育和营养)，从而打破 贫困的代际传递。为了接收现金转账， 孕妇必须获得产前护理和营养补充剂，儿童 0-5岁必须得到良好的婴儿护理，并参与生长监测和 营养补充计划，家庭必须参与健康 营养和卫生教育项目。 我们的分析将利用随机对照设计。1998年， 将506个村随机分为对照组和治疗组。合资格 治疗村的家庭立即获得福利，而福利 对控制村中符合条件的家庭推迟到年后 2000年。对大约19,000户家庭进行的干预前基线调查 超过95,000名个人和4个跟踪调查(6个月 在为期两年的实验期间，对相同的家庭进行了 句号。我们建议在年内对相同的住户进行跟进调查。 2003年。这项跟踪调查将在实验结束后三年进行， 它将包括儿童健康状况和认知能力的生物医学测量。 发展。 我们将利用这个无与伦比的实验来研究以下具体的 适用于基线年龄为0-3岁、出生于 试验期： 1.Progresa是否改善了儿童的健康、营养和认知发展？ 2.观察到的差异是否在All注册后3年保持 儿童进入进展期 3.仅仅通过现金转账就能达到同样的结果吗 护理和监测的要求，但没有营养 补充剂？

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to evaluate the impact of a unique anti-poverty program in Mexico on the health and cognitive development of young children. The program, PROGRESA, combines a traditional cash transfer program with financial incentives for families to invest in the human capital (health, education and nutrition) of their children, and thereby break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. To receive the cash transfers, pregnant women must obtain prenatal care and nutrition supplements, children age 0-5 must obtain well-baby care and participate in growth monitoring and nutrition supplement programs, and families must participate in health nutrition and hygiene education programs. Our analysis will take advantage of a randomized controlled design. In 1998, 506 villages were randomly assigned to control and treatment groups. Eligible households in treatment villages received benefits immediately, while benefits for eligible households in control villages were postponed until after the year 2000. A pre-intervention baseline survey of approximately 19,000 households with over 95,000 individuals and four follow-up surveys (at six month intervals) of the same households were conducted over the two-year experimental period. We propose to conduct a follow-up survey of the same households in 2003. This follow-up survey will be three years after the experiment ended and it will include biomedical measures of child health status and of cognitive development. We will use this unparalleled experiment to examine the following specific questions for children who were age 0-3 at baseline and born during the experimental period: 1. Did PROGRESA improve child health, nutrition and cognitive development? 2. Are the observed differentials sustained 3 years after the enrollment of all children into PROGRESA 3. Could the same results have been achieved through just cash transfers with the requirements for care and monitoring, but without the nutrition supplements?