EXTERNALITIES IN PROGRAM EVALUATION: THE IMPACT OF A WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM ON IMMUNIZATION
基于印度妇女赋权项目Mahila Samakhya的数据，研究发现该项目不仅提高了参与家庭儿童的免疫接种率，还对非参与家庭儿童产生了显著的正向溢出效应，忽视这些外部性会严重低估干预效果。
Impact evaluations of development programs usually do not explicitly take into account externalities on non-participants. Based on a unique dataset we estimate the direct as well as the spillover effects of Mahila Samakhya, a women's empowerment program in India, on child immunization. The survey covers both participants and non-participants in program villages, as well as respondents in control villages. We account for participation selection bias using instrumental variables. We propose a direct test for the exclusion restriction using the control villages. We find both direct effects on the immunization rates of participants' children and significant spillovers on immunization rates of non-participants' children. The impact of interventions might be substantially underestimated if such external effects were not taken into account. Alternative estimation methods such as propensity score matching and a regression discontinuity approach yield comparable results. © 2011 by the European Economic Association.