The authors use the unique experimental design of the Food Support Program (Programa Apoyo Alimentario) to analyze in-kind and cash transfers in the poor rural areas of southern states of Mexico. They compare the impacts of monthly in-kind and cash transfers of equivalent value (mean share 11.5...

The authors evaluate whether increasing school resources and decentralizing management decisions at the school level improves learning in a developing country. Mexico's Quality Schools Program (PEC), following many other countries and U.S. states, offers US

This paper compares the ex ante simulation of the impacts of conditional cash transfer programs against the ex post estimates of impacts obtained from experimental evaluations. Using data on program-eligible households in treatment areas from the same baseline surveys that are used for...

"While providing the most reliable method of evaluating social programs, randomized experiments in industrial and developing countries alike are accompanied by political risks and ethical issues that jeopardize the chances of adopting them. Buddelmeyer and Skoufias use a unique data set from...

The unique experimental design of the Food Support Programme (Programa de Apoyo Alimentario) is used to analyse in-kind and cash transfers in the poor rural areas of southern states of Mexico. The intent-to-treat effect on poverty of cash transfers of real value 25 per cent less than the market...