Do Cash Transfers Trigger Investments? Evidence for Peru

This paper provides an impact evaluation of the Juntos programme on households' decisions to invest in livestock and agricultural and non-agricultural assets used for income generating activities. Using Propensity Score Matching and Difference in Difference techniques, we show: i) that beneficiaries are significantly more likely to invest in productive assets and activities with respect to non-beneficiaries; ii) that Juntos is more likely to relax liquidity constraints rather than to be used as an insurance for risky investments; iii) that the programs benefits the poor but not the poorest of the poor. Duration and transfers regularity do not produce significant differences between groups of beneficiaries. However, results show a sustained impact of the programme over time