math and language exams.<sup>16</sup> Another important goal of CCTs is improving child health. In a randomized trial approach involving 320 treated and 185 control villages in Mexico, Gertler [2004] found a positive impact of PROGRESA on child health with respect to morbidity, height, and anemia. Behrman et al. [2011] show evidence of a positive impact on health, particularly on women, with larger impacts for those who receive the program for a longer time. For BFP in Brazil, Reis [2010] also found a positive impact on child health. Camelo et al. [2009] used the National Survey of Demography and Health from 2006 to analyze the impact of BFP on nutrition. They found a positive impact of the program on child food security and nutrition, but they did not find a reduction in morbidity.

Even though most of the literature evaluating CCTs converges in finding a positive impact of these programs on increasing the demand on child health and education services, the studies are usually not able to disentangle the role played by conditionalities, female bargaining power and the cash transfer. Among the exceptions, Teixeira et al. [2010] found evidence of a positive impact of conditionalities on children’s school attendance and number of visits at health centers in the Tekopor’s program (Paraguay). Baird et al. [2011] present the results of experiments with different conditionalities, focusing on schooling for young women in Sub-Saharan Africa. They found that the conditionality was only effective when the cash transfer was received directly by the young women.

Another research area is the impact of CCTs on fertility. On the one hand, CCTs usually aim to increase child human capital and target transfers to women. Therefore, if the programs succeed in breaking intergenerational poverty transmission by increasing child human capital, one might expect a negative impact on next generation’s fertility.<sup>17</sup> On the other hand, the total amount of transfer usually increases with the number of children. This could be seen as an incentive for having additional children. If the latter is the case, meeting the programs objective of breaking intergenerational poverty transmission could be made more difficult. If the real costs of an additional child exceed the transfer, which seems likely given the relatively small additional transfer per child, less resources per capita are available for private investments in child human capital. Eventually, the former issue is an empirical question; studies by Rocha [2009] and Signorini and Queiroz [2012] have not found a significant impact of BFP on fertility.

Finally, due to the fact that CCT programs increase income, we would expect a positive im-

> 16There are few analyses on BFP and school achievement of beneficiary children. Despite the recent availability of data on standardized tests to measure school achievement in Brazil, most of them do not identify BFPs’ beneficiary children.

> 17This demographic transition may operate through the relative wage of women. In their model on fertility and growth, Galor and Weil [1996] present a mechanism in which higher relative wages for women increase the cost for having children and lead to a decline in fertility.

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