Cumulative Impacts of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: Experimental Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

Conditional cash transfers provide income and promote human capital investments. Yet evaluating their longitudinal impacts is hard, as most experimental evaluations treat control locations after a few years. We examine such impacts in Indonesia after six years, where the program rollout left the experiment largely intact. We find static effects on many targeted indicators: childbirth using trained professionals increased dramatically, and under-15 children not in school fell by half. We observe impacts requiring cumulative investments: stunting fell by 23 percent. While human capital accumulation increased, the transfers did not lead to transformative economic change for recipient households. (JEL I21, I38, J13, J24, O15)