| This dissertation uses qualitative case study analysis to examine the effects of CCT program participation on household resource allocations and attitudes towards education among urban beneficiaries of Ecuador's Bono de Desarrollo Humano. Although this program is the primary focus, results from Bogota's Subsidios Condicionados a la Asistencia Escolar are also presented for the purpose of comparison.;Specifically, the research looks at how beneficiary families invest in education, under what conditions, and how this investment varies across children and for different levels and types of educational programs. Confounding variables include the timing of transfer receipt, perceptions of conditionality, and participation in an ancillary microloan program. As with spending, the influence of transfer receipt on how educational aspirations and expectations of children vary across distinct levels of education, within families, and across different types of households is also explored.;Analysis relies on family interviews and focus groups with beneficiaries and their family members in Quito, and contrasts results to previous studies of and original data from Bogota's Subsidios Condicionados a la Asistencia Escolar CCT program. The selection of the latter program, as well as a focus on urban beneficiaries of the BDH, addresses a lack of attention to CCT program impacts on urban beneficiaries despite recent urban expansions of these programs. Purposive sampling also focuses attention on the relative importance of when resources are distributed for students in different types of families and at key transition points in the education cycle (primary to secondary and secondary to post-secondary).;Results find that the family's immediate economic circumstance is the most salient determinant in both educational spending and family members' aspirations for children. Furthermore, these circumstances are fluid in nature and are not always well predicted by official program measures of poverty. Program rhetoric, conditionality, the timing of when benefits are received with respect to when expenditures are incurred also have significant influence on familial spending. Furthermore, additional supply-side initiatives including academic orientation programs have considerable potential to increase the effectiveness of the cash transfer. |
