TY  - JOUR
AU  - Angelucci,Manuela
AU  - Giorgi,Giacomo De
AU  - Rangel,Marcos A.
AU  - Rasul,Imran
TI  - Family Networks and School Enrolment: Evidence from a Randomized Social Experiment
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14949
PY  - 2009
Y2  - May 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14949
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14949.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
manuela angelucci
Department of Economics
University of Michigan
Lorch Hall, 611 Tappan St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220
E-Mail: mangeluc@umich.edu

Giacomo De Giorgi
Department of Economics
Stanford University
579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Tel: 650/723-3982
E-Mail: degiorgi@stanford.edu

Marcos Rangel
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
and Population Research Center at NORC/University 
E-Mail: rangelm@usp.br

Imran Rasul
University College London
Department Of Economics
Drayton House
30 Gordon Street
London WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 207 679 5853
E-Mail: i.rasul@ucl.ac.uk
AB  - We present evidence on whether and how a household's behavior is influenced by the presence and characteristics of its extended family. Using household panel data from the Progresa program in rural Mexico, we exploit information on the paternal and maternal surnames of heads and spouses in conjunction with the Spanish naming convention to identify the inter and intra generational family links of each household to others in the same village. We then exploit the randomized research design of the Progresa evaluation data to identify whether the treatment effects of Progresa transfers on secondary school enrolment vary according to the presence and characteristics of extended family. We find that Progresa only raises secondary enrolment among households that are embedded in a family network. Eligible but isolated households do not respond. The mechanism through which the extended family influences household schooling choices is the redistribution of resources within the family network from eligibles that receive de facto unconditional cash transfers from Progresa, towards eligibles on the margin of enrolling their children into secondary school.
ER  -