Evaluation of the labor and educational impact of PROGRESAR

Programa de Apoyo a los Estudiantes Argentinos (PROG.R.ES.AR) is a conditional cash transfer targeted to students from disadvantaged households. This program intends to tackle youth disparities encouraging youth’s human capital investments to improve labor profiles. In terms of population reach and fiscal effort, PROG.R.ES.AR is the main policy aimed at young people in Argentina and one of the most relevant in Latin America. This work identifies and tracks its beneficiaries over time, in order to evaluate the impact of the program through labor indicators as well as educational achievements. Difference-in-difference and discontinuous regression methodologies were used. The results do not allow us to account for a significant impact on the activity and employment rates of the program’s beneficiaries, nor for an improvement in educational achievement