# **IV Data**

We employ two data sources for the analysis presented here: (1) the PROSPERA panel data gathered, since 1997 all the way to 2017-2018 (on a subset of localities and individuals), for the evaluation of the initial experiment and (ii) the 2015 intercensus data collected by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

## **IV.A PROSPERA ENCEL panel**

As it is widely known, in 1997 a sample of 24,077 households in 506 rural localities was selected to implement a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in order to give robust evidence about the effects of PROSPERA (known as Progresa at that time).<sup>6</sup> This set of localities, chosen according to the administration of the program guidelines, where then allocated to a treatment (320 localities) and a control group (186 localities) where the eligible households in treatment group received PROSPERA’s support, transfers were distributed to those eligible households who complied with the stated rules of the program, starting in the fall of 1998 while the control localities started to receive the same treatment at the very end of 1999. Such sample was followed up with a survey instrument called ENCEL in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2007 to give evidence of short and medium-run impacts of the program. In an effort to provide relevant data to evaluate the effects of PROSPERA in the long-run, the World Bank, PROSPERA and the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) partnered to gather information in 2017-2018 on a subset of that sample of participants.

**ENCEL 2017-2018 sampling framework.** Given the budgetary restrictions and the complexity of tracking back the original participants, which was the strategy of the previous rounds of the panel, a sub-sample of 334 localities of the 506 original localities was selected.<sup>7</sup> As Panel A in Table 1 shows, this first filter meant that richer eligible households in less marginalized localities would become the sample target. Each of the selected localities was visited and the surveyors looked for the 18,564 households included in the 1997 sample that inhabited that locality. The targeting strategy employed at the beginning of the program to select beneficiaries defined 12,519 of these households as eligible. We will focus our analysis in this set of households, since they provide the variation that would be relevant for the analysis.<sup>8</sup> Priority was given to households that had young members at the start of the data collection (1997-2000). In total, 7,824 eligible households were located in the 2017-18 data collection. Hereon, we

> 6At the beginning of the program, priority was given to rural localities. In Mexico, rural localities are defined as those with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants.

> 7Localities that were more accessible and as a result richer within the 506 original full sample were selected for the ENCEL 2017-18. A set of localities that were added in the 2003 round are not included in the sampling framework for the 2017-18 round.

> 8Non-eligible households could have enrolled later to the program. However, comparing non-eligible households from treatment and control communities would involve selecting households that initially did not receive the program and were not affected by the random allocation of treatment.

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