This paper analyzes how electoral incentives affected the performance of a major decentralized conditional cash transfer program intended on reducing school dropout rates among children of poor households in Brazil. We show that while this federal program successfully reduced school dropout by 8...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs for education are known to be effective in increasing educational achievements among the rural poor. Using panel data from the Progresa experience with randomized treatment, we show that there is strong state dependence in school attendance. Short term...

While access to land is back high on the policy agenda as an instrument to attack poverty, strong reservations have been expressed as to whether this strategy can indeed be effective. To help shed light on this important debate, this paper establishes the conditions under which access to land...