Regression Discontinuity Impacts with an Implicit Index: Evaluating El Salvador’s Comunidades Solidarias Rurales Transfer Programme

Abstract

IFPRI and the Fundación Salvadoreña para El Desarrollo Económico y Social (FUSADES) collaborated between 2007 and 2010 to evaluate the impacts of the Comunidades Solidarias Rurales (CSR) programme in El Salvador. CSR includes two types of conditional transfers: an education and a health transfer. Households are eligible for the education transfer if they have a member between six and 15 years of age who has not yet completed primary school; and for the health transfer if any pregnant women lived in the household at the time of the inception census or any children aged up to five years live in the household. The education transfer is conditional on school enrolment and attendance; the health transfer is conditional on growth monitoring check-ups, receiving timely vaccinations, and antenatal monitoring check-ups for pregnant women. The transfer amount is US$15 per month per household for the education or health transfer, and $20 per month if households are eligible for both types. Payments do not vary by the number of eligible children in the household. (…)