Across the different measures, we find suggestive evidence of positive effects for the merit-based treatment. All coefficients are positive, and two of them are statistically significant (Raven’s and the overall “family index”). The estimation suggests an overall effect of 0.113 standard deviations on these measures (significant at the 10% significance level). In contrast, the results for the poverty-based scholarship are

- of -0.129 SDs, significant at the 10% level, and different from the effect

- merit-based transfer, significant at the 5% level). The “family index” is close in the case of the poverty scholarship (<0.01 standard deviations). findings here, nine years after program inception, are consistent with in the previous three-year follow up study. In that study, merit-based

- recipients scored higher in mathematics and for the Digit Span and Filmer 2016), whereas poverty-based scholarship recipients

- **Socioemotional skills**

- important contribution of our study is the analysis of effects on socioemotional We are not only interested in measuring the effects of scholarships on we are also interested in the relationship between cognitive and socioemo-

- skills. The intuition behind this analysis has two parts. First, if scholarships more schooling for both types of scholarship recipients, then, under the

- sumption that schools also “produce” socioemotional skills, we should observe effects on these skills from both poverty- and merit-based scholarships. In contrast, is a complementary relationship in the accumulation of cognitive and socioemotional we should observe effects on socioemotional skills only for students with scholarship, and not for students in the poverty-based scholarship.

- present these relationships in the next paragraphs.

# **6.3 Socioemotional skills**

An important contribution of our study is the analysis of effects on socioemotional skills. We are not only interested in measuring the effects of scholarships on these measures; we are also interested in the relationship between cognitive and socioemotional skills. The intuition behind this analysis has two parts. First, if scholarships induced more schooling for both types of scholarship recipients, then, under the assumption that schools also “produce” socioemotional skills, we should observe effects on these skills from both poverty- and merit-based scholarships. In contrast, if there is a complementary relationship in the accumulation of cognitive and socioemotional skills, we should observe effects on socioemotional skills only for students with the merit-based scholarship, and not for students in the poverty-based scholarship. We formally present these relationships in the next paragraphs.

Our approach is based on two different conceptual models of the relationships between years of education ( _E_ ), cognitive skills ( _C_ ), and socioemotional skills ( _S_ ). As a starting point, based on the evaluation three years after the program’s inception either close to zero or even negative, in the case of the Forward Digit Span (a point estimate of -0.129 SDs, significant at the 10% level, and different from the effect for the merit-based transfer, significant at the 5% level). The “family index” is close to zero in the case of the poverty scholarship (<0.01 standard deviations). The findings here, nine years after program inception, are consistent with those documented in the previous three-year follow up study. In that study, merit-based scholarship recipients scored higher in mathematics and for the Digit Span test (Barrera-Osorio and Filmer 2016), whereas poverty-based scholarship recipients did not.

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