(2011) indicates a decline in the rate of work among younger boys, no impact on the labor participation of older boys, and positive impacts of the program on work among older girls.

Other long term results are more encouraging for CCTs. For instance, Barham, Macours, and Maluccio (2014) look at Nicaragua’s _Red de Proteccion Social_ on educational attainment a decade after the program began. The study exploits the randomized phasing of the program to estimate the differential effect of the access of two treatment groups and considering individuals who had stopped receiving the transfer seven years earlier. It finds that boys who had received a transfer in early childhood (benefitting more intensely from the education transfer) had about 0.3 years more years of completed education, scored 0.2 standard deviations higher, and showed higher earnings from seasonal migration reflected in a 10–30 percent higher monthly off-farm income relative to the late treatment group. To assess the concern that CCTs may discourage work, Banerjee et al. (2015) reanalyze the results of randomized assessments of seven CCTs worldwide to study their effect on labor supply. Their analysis finds no systematic evidence that there is an undesirable effect on the propensity to work nor on the number of hours worked. Moreover, Banerjee et al. (2016) find proof of long-term (and growing) effects of an antipoverty program that includes an asset transfer in West Bengal, India, based on data from three survey waves. Over five years after having stopped receiving benefits, according to the study, households present increased consumption (25 percent), higher food security, more assets, higher earnings, and more financial stability than the control group. Mental and physical health indicators also show an improvement relative to nonbeneficiaries.

A related though different question to that of long-term impact is how efficient CCTs are in comparison with other unconditional programs. While this area has yet to be more profoundly studied, recent empirical research has started to shed some light. Baird et al. (2013) analyze data from 35 studies in 75 reports to compare the effectiveness of CCTs relative to UCTs in terms of schooling outcomes. Their review suggests that both CCTs and unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) increase the probability of enrollment and attendance, though the effects on test scores are moderate at best. Differentiating between intensity of conditioning, their analysis indicates that interventions that are explicitly conditional and monitor and penalize noncompliance have a larger impact than programs with no conditions or that have some conditions with minimum enforcement and monitoring. Özler, Baird, and McIntosh (2016) look at the sustained (medium-term) effects of a two-year CCT program compared with a UCT program among young women and adolescent girls in Malawi.<sup>3</sup> The study finds declines in HIV prevalence, teenage pregnancy and early marriage among the UCT group, unlike the CCT group, however these effects dissipated after the cessation of the unconditional grants. Conditionality, they conclude, could be limiting the social protection aspect of CCTs, even if it appears to be more effective in achieving behavioral change. The study also finds that children born to UCT beneficiaries

> 3 While the conditional transfer is based on attendance, recipients only need to show up to obtain the unconditional one.

3