Heterogeneous impacts in PROGRESA

Abstract

We investigate impact heterogeneity using data from the experimental evaluation of the Mexican conditional cash transfer program PROGRESA. We build upon, and extend Heckman, Smith and Clements (Heckman, J., Smith, J., Clements, N., 1997. Making the most out of programme evaluations and social experiments: Accounting for heterogeneity in programme impacts. Review of Economic Studies 64, 487–535) and recent studies of quantile treatment effects and random coefficient models. We find strong evidence of systematic (i.e. subgroup) variation in impacts in PROGRESA and modest evidence of heterogeneous impacts conditional on the systematic impacts. Our paper concludes with a discussion of the policy relevance of our findings and of heterogeneous impacts more generally.