Abstract:
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are widely used as a poverty reduction policy. While a large stream of literature has evaluated their short-term impacts, we know far less about their long-term effects. This paper investigates the long-term, intergenerational effects of one of the largest CCT in the world: Brazil's Programa Bolsa Família (PBF). To estimate PBF long-term effects, we compare adult outcomes of siblings more and less exposed to the programme due to their age in families targeted and not by the programme using a difference-in-differences design and a comprehensive set of population-wide administrative datasets. We show that PBF significantly increases human capital accumulation, earnings, and intergenerational income mobility, and that it reduces welfare dependency by the next generation. These effects are more pronounced for younger children and women, highlighting the importance of early exposure to the programme. Our findings underscore the effectiveness of PBF in breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty and fostering social mobility.
