Download or read book The Impact of Oportunidades on Human Capital and Income Distribution written by Dario Debowicz and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-04-05 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an effort to inform social policy in Mexico, this paper analyzes the effects of a major social program on school attendance and household income distribution, accounting for its partial and general equilibrium effects. Linking a microeconometric simulation model and a general equilibrium model in a bidirectional way, the paper explicitly takes spillover effects of the Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program into account. Our results suggest that partial equilibrium analysis alone may underestimate the distributional effects of the program. Extending the coverage of the program leads to a significant increase in school attendance, which reduces labor supply and increases the equilibrium wages of the children who remain at work. This general equilibrium effect indirectly reduces income inequality and poverty at the national level.