About

Tania Barham is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research interests encompass health economics, development economics, and labor economics. She has investigated the impacts of conditional cash transfers on child health and educational outcomes in countries such as Mexico, Nicaragua, and Yemen. Her work also explores the long-term effects of family planning and early child health interventions on cognitive development among older children and adolescents. Additionally, she uses randomized experiments to test household expenditure patterns, examining whether these differ depending on whether money is in the hands of men or women, and studies the effects of electrification on poverty in Brazil. Dr. Barham holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, obtained in 2005, along with an MA from the University of British Columbia and a BA from McGill University. She has worked as a consultant at the World Bank on development-related research topics. Her current research includes analyzing the impact of government policies on health outcomes among the poor in Mexico and Nicaragua, the influence of decentralization on public service allocation in Mexico, and the effects of managed care on birth outcomes within the Medicaid population in the United States. She is also engaged in exploring environmental health issues and is affiliated as a Faculty Research Associate at the Institute of Behavioral Science, Health and Society.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Demography
• Demographic economics
• Medicine
• Economics
• Economic growth
• Geography
• Labour economics
• Psychology
• Monetary economics
• Environmental health
• Macroeconomics
• Gerontology

Selected publications

• Supported Work Leads to Lasting Labor Market Success Among TANF Recipients

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Measuring the Long-Term Impact of Cash Transfers

  The MIT Press eBooks · 2026-03-10

  book-chapterOpen access

  IntroductionCash transfer programs often have multiple objectives, from providing a safety net to breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty.This combination of short-term poverty alleviation and long-term economic mobility lay at the heart of the first-generation programs in Latin Amer i ca, starting with Mexico's Progresa in 1997.Regular cash transfers were given to increase house hold consumption and provide a semi-permanent safety net.At the same time, monitored conditions were included to increase house hold investment in children's human capital, with the expectation that the eventual returns from those investments would allow beneficiaries to lead more eco nom ically productive adult lives.As conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs spread worldwide, design features proliferated and programs employed dif fer ent theories of change, but all programs with conditions related to health or education investments had similar long-term objectives.In addition to potential long-term returns to induced human capital investments, cash transfer programs can also lead to longer-term impacts through other channels.Conditions and social marketing, while constraining decisions, provide information (e.g., regarding dietary diversity, prenatal health care, vaccination, or the value of education), thereby reducing information failures and affecting house hold decision-making.Both CCTs and unconditional cash transfers (UCTs), by relaxing internal liquidity or insurance constraints, can also trigger increased productive investments in livestock, agricultural and business assets, or migration, leading to income and consumption multipliers.In some cases, exposure to cash transfers can change preferences or aspirations, or affect mental health, all of which can influence decision-making.And where the targeting of transfers shifts intra house hold bargaining positions, dif fer ent intra house hold equilibria might emerge.For example, transfers made to women could lead to semi-permanent changes in house hold composition through marriage, divorce, or migration.In sum, there are many channels, as well as pos si ble pathways through those channels, by which cash transfer programs can have long-term impacts.This complexity can make longterm returns uncertain, for example, if other constraints or offsetting effects influence the pathways.A growing lit er a ture examines whether, under what conditions, for whom, and

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Second generation effects of an experimental conditional cash transfer program on early childhood human capital in Nicaragua

  Economics & Human Biology · 2025-03-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  Interventions targeting improvements in human capital are often motivated by their potential to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty from parents to children. This study contributes to the thin evidence base on these links by examining outcomes for children of former program beneficiaries of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, capitalizing on randomized variation in the timing and CCT's impact on maternal human capital. We estimate intent-to-treat (ITT) differential effects on early childhood anthropometric and cognitive outcomes for 0-3-year-old children of program beneficiaries [N=366], as well as effects on key domains including nutrition, health, stimulation and the home environment. We find that moderately higher schooling for mothers (19-22 years old) who were the original program beneficiaries did not translate into improvements in anthropometrics or cognitive outcomes for their children. We also find no effects on behaviors commonly thought to be affected by higher education such as investments in nutrition and preventive health, or stimulation. Early program beneficiary mothers, however, had worse mental health outcomes and were more likely to use violent disciplinary practices such as spanking, threatening and punishing. Findings demonstrate the complexity of intergenerational mechanisms across genetic, biological, environmental and behavioral factors, and also suggest the importance of maternal mental health as a mechanism influencing child outcomes.

  PublisherDOI

• Experimental Evidence from a Conditional Cash Transfer Program: Schooling, Learning, Fertility, and Labor Market Outcomes after 10 Years

  Journal of the European Economic Association · 2024 · 13 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Economics
  • Labour economics

  Abstract Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are the antipoverty program of choice in many developing countries, aiming to improve human capital and break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. A decade after a randomized 3 year CCT program began, earlier exposure during primary school ages when children were at risk of dropout led to higher labor market participation for young men and women and higher earnings for men. The findings highlight the roles of the different CCT program components with variation in timing of access to nutrition, health, and education investments translating into substantial differential effects on learning outcomes for men and reproductive health outcomes for women.

  PublisherDOI

• An Impact Evaluation of ReHire Colorado

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2023-05-31

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Taking a Chance on Workers: Evidence on the Effects and Mechanisms of Subsidized Employment from an Rct

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Measuring the Impact of Workforce Development Programming: Experimental Evidence from Goodwill North Georgias Workforce Development Program

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2023-11-09

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Measuring the Impact of Workforce Development Programming: Experimental Evidence from Goodwill North Georgias Workforce Development Program

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2023-11-09

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• An Impact Evaluation of ReHire Colorado

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2023-05-31

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• No Place Like Home

  The Journal of Human Resources · 2023-12-11 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  <h3>Abstract</h3> This paper examines the long-term effects of early childhood health interventions, such as vaccination, and family planning, on adult labor market and migration outcomes in Bangladesh. ITT effects demonstrate men born when both intensive child health services and family planning were available were more educated and had better quality and more entrepreneurial occupations that required academic skills, but migrated less domestically leaving average annual income unaffected. Similarly aged women also engaged more in entrepreneurial paid work. An older cohort of men born prior to the introduction of intensive child health interventions migrated less internationally leading to lower annual earning.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Effects of Social Transfer Programs on Cognitive, Social, and Economic Outcomes

  NSF · $231k · 2011–2015

Frequent coauthors

• John A. Maluccio

  Middlebury College

  13 shared

• Karen Macours

  11 shared

• Patrick Turner

  University of Notre Dame

  9 shared

• Randall Kuhn

  VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System

  6 shared

• Brian C. Cadena

  5 shared

• Marco Stampini

  University of California, San Diego

  4 shared

• Teresa Molina-Millán

  4 shared

• Paul Gertler

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  4 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of California, Berkeley

  2005

• M.A.

  University of British Columbia

• B.A.

  McGill University