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Mexico: Evaluating Social Development Programs

To combat the effects of poverty, the Mexican government's Social Development Ministry (Secretaría de Desarrollo Social) has sponsored a number of initiatives. Mathematica provided technical assistance on a study, conducted by local evaluators, of Estrategia de Microrregiones (EM). This key social program channeled resources to areas with a high marginalization index—a multidimensional measure of poverty and need—mostly in rural areas. The evaluation used regression discontinuity and propensity score matching to examine the effects of the funding stream at the regional and lcoal levels.

In urban areas of Mexico, privileged and developed areas coexist with areas in need of basic infrastructure, which has created socioeconomic differences. Since 2003, the social program, Habitat, has worked to overcome challenges in these marginalized urban areas by improving basic infrastructure, urban facilities, and public services in poor neighborhoods at the same time that it expands residents’ access to social services. The program is community-driven—local governments propose the projects they want to implement and match funds provided by the federal government.

Mathematica evaluated Habitat's effects on basic infrastructure during the first two years of implementation, using data from the Census of 2000 and the Conteo of 2005. The evaluation used a quasi-experimental approach based on propensity score matching to create comparison groups similar to the intervention groups in three components: (1) access to drinking water, (2) access to sewage and drainage, and (3) access to electricity. Habitat’s impact was estimated using a difference-in-differences estimator for each component. Researchers found evidence that Habitat increased access to sewage more in the intervention group than in comparison groups, but it did not have a statistically significant effect on access to drinking water or electricity.

Publications

"An Evaluation of the Effects of Habitat, a Mexican Social Program, on Basic Infrastructure" (October 2007)