Can large, untargeted conditional cash transfers increase urban high school graduation rates? Evidence from Mexico City's Prepa Sí

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects of a massive, minimally targeted conditional cash transfer program in Mexico City's public high schools on graduation rates, test scores, and school choice. Using a difference-in-differences approach that exploits variation in eligibility between students and cohorts within a high school, I find that this program had no appreciable effect on high school completion. The results are sufficiently precise to rule out policy-relevant effect sizes. Null effects persist for subgroups that could be candidates for a targeted program. End-of-high school exam scores are apparently unaffected by the program and effects on high school choices by eligible students are minimal. There is no evidence for heterogeneous effects with respect to implicit or explicit cost of attendance, suggesting that liquidity constraints are not a key driver of high school dropout in this urban setting. These results highlight the challenges of using cash to improve academic outcomes in cities.