Bolsa Família, its Design, its Impacts and Possibilities for the Future

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programmes, including the Bolsa Família programme, have been extensively studied over recent years. The books, working papers and articles that have been written on the subject, if placed on top of each other, would pile up very high indeed. What excuse do I have for spending my time writing this one and asking you to spend yours reading it? My excuse is twofold. The first excuse is that, in spite of the aforementioned pile of studies, much about the programme is still not common knowledge. In the different forums in which I have been I have seen that many elementary facts about Bolsa Família are still relatively unknown to audiences beyond (some) Brazilian policymakers and government officials. How did the programme come about? What exactly was the Lula government?s role in its creation? What impact has it had on poverty, inequality, education, health and labour supply? Did it have any significant political effects? What are its contradictions and possibilities for the future? My objective is to give brief and, if possible, conclusive answers to all these questions in a single text. (?)Bolsa Família, its Design, its Impacts and Possibilities for the Future

Bolsa Família: A Summary of Its Impacts

Targeted and Conditioned Cash Transfers (CCTs) began hesitatingly and somewhat chaotically in Brazil in 1995 and have grown in relevance ever since. From 1995 to 2003, there were many CCT programs, run by all levels of government and, within the federal government, by five different ministries, with very little coordination among them. While the lack of coordination certainly reduced their effectiveness, there is little doubt that the municipal and state level experimentation was crucial in the design of what was to follow. (?)Bolsa Família: A Summary of Its Impacts

Targeting and Coverage of the Bolsa Família Programme: What Is the Meaning of Eleven Million Families?

By the second half of 2006, Brazil?s Bolsa Família Programme (Programa Bolsa Família, PBF) had reached its pre-fixed target of covering 11 million families. That target was revised in January 2009, when an increase in coverage was authorised, expanding it to 12.5 million. Since the PBF?s ability to reach the entire poor population is based on the programme?s targeting and size (coverage), Soares et al. (2010) use data from the National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, PNAD) to assess whether the programme?s expansion between 2004 and 2006 degraded its progressivity, and they estimate the number of benefits needed to fully encompass the entire target population. They use a targeting analysis tool such as the programme?s incidence concentration coefficient and binary analysis of eligibility versus receipt. (?)Targeting and Coverage of the Bolsa Família Programme: What Is the Meaning of Eleven Million Families?

USE OF SURVEY DESIGN FOR THE EVALUATION OF SOCIAL PROGRAMS: THE PNAD AND PETI

The structure of some household surveys allows the evaluation of social programs which are implemented gradually by municipality and whose objectives are measurable by survey variables. Such evaluations do not require over sampling of areas in which the program was implemented, nor the application of additional questionnaires, while providing baseline data and non-experimental comparison groups. We use the PNAD survey to evaluate the impact of the Program for the Eradication of Child Labor on child labor, schooling, and income for municipalities which entered the program from 1997-1999. We present results both from a reflexive comparison and from matching municipalities to form a comparison group and measuring the difference in differences (D in D). Only the reduction of child labor is robust to the D in D analysis, while the reflexive results also demonstrate a significant increase in school attendance. We find the program to be more effective in smaller municipalities as suggested by Rocha (1999).

Can all Cash Transfers Reduce Inequality?

.Poverty, CCT, Cash Transfers, Inequality

Targeting and Coverage of the Bolsa Família Programme: Why Knowing What You Measure Is Important In Choosing the Numbers

The trade-off between targeting and coverage has always been something of a quandary for progressive cash transfers, particularly those that are not entitlements. Undue inclusion errors mean that families or individuals whose need is not so great are being paid at the expense of either taxpayers or other budgetary priorities. Undue exclusion errors mean that those who are in need, sometimes in desperate need, are not being helped by the state. This trade-off is somewhat less extreme for entitlements. If the law says that families whose income is less than a quarter of a minimum wage are entitled to a given cash allowance, then all those whose income falls under that line should receive the allowance. There is still a trade-off because measurement error still occurs, but the discussion centres only on the inclusion criteria. Most conditional cash transfers (CCTs), however, are not entitlements. (...)Targeting and Coverage of the Bolsa Família Programme: Why Knowing What You Measure Is Important In Choosing the Numbers

Covariates of efficiency in education production among developing pacific-basin and Latin American countries

COVARIATES OF EFFICIENCY IN EDUCATION PRODUCTION AMONG DEVELOPING PACIFIC- BASIN AND LATIN-AMERICAN COUNTRIESThe paper investigates why some schools in East Asia and Latin America are more efficient in the use of resources than others. It estimates input and output efficiencies and uses efficiency scores as dependent variables in analysis of variance and regression analyses. Input and output efficiencies are calculated using ?hard? inputs such as number and quality of teachers and student socio-economic status, and ?soft? inputs such as management; sorting and school autonomy are then used as explanatory variables in the variance and regression analysis. The results indicate that private management and student selection lead to high efficiencies and this result is negative for those who hope for quality public education for all; greater school autonomy leads to higher efficiencies, even for public schools that do not practice selection.Efficiency, Education quality, School inputs, Poverty

The Impact of Relative Prices on Welfare and Inequality in Brazil, 1995-2005

Our objective in this working paper is to analyze the impact of relative prices on the evolution of welfare and inequality in Brazil from 1995 to 2005. This period was characterized by monetary stability but also by large changes in relative prices. This implies that a homogeneous inflation index will yield questionable results. In order to take relative prices into account in our welfare analysis, we build specific inflation indices for each hundredth of the population ranked by per capita household income. To accomplish this task, we use data from the latest round of the Brazilian income and expenditure survey and price indices obtained from the national consumer price system. We use our distribution-specific inflation indices to deflate the nominal income distributions yielded by the Brazilian annual household survey from 1995 to 2005. Thus, we generate new income distributions that better represent the real purchasing power of the households. Based on these new income distributions, we calculate average incomes and Gini coefficients, investigate the relationships of stochastic dominance as well as Lorenz dominance, and calculate Atkinson?s social welfare function for inequality aversion parameters varying from 0.1 to 0.9. Our results can be summarized into three stylized facts: i) inflation during the 1995-2005 period was distributionally progressive up to the 93rd hundredth of the per capita household income distribution; ii) taking relative prices into account, the Gini coefficient falls 0.61 points (or 19 per cent) more than when a general price index is used; iii) surprisingly, average income deflated by the distribution-specific indices differs significantly from average income deflated by the general price index, i.e., it falls instead of rising slightly from 1995 to 2005.Relative Prices, Welfare, Inequality, Brazil

Conditional Cash Transfers in Brazil, Chile and Mexico: Impacts upon Inequality

This Working Paper decomposes changes in the Gini coefficient in order to investigate whether Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) have had an inequality reducing effect in three Latin American countries: Brazil, Mexico and Chile. Its technique is the decomposition of the Gini coefficient by factor components. Its main finding is that CCT programmes helped reduce inequality between the mid-1990s and roughly the mid-2000s. The share of total income represented by the CCTs has been very small: about 0.5 per cent in Mexico and Brazil and a very small 0.01 per cent in Chile. But since their targeting has been outstanding, their equalizing impact was responsible for about 21 per cent of the fall in both the Brazilian and the Mexican Gini index, each of which fell by approximately 2.7 points during the period that this paper reviewed. In Chile the effect was responsible for a 15 per cent reduction in inequality, although the total reduction in inequality was very modest: a mere 0.1 Gini point. The difference was due to the small size of the Chilean programme relative to the larger Mexican and Brazilian programmes.Distribution, Conditional Cash Transfers, Brazil, Chile, Mexico

Metodologia e resultados da avaliação do programa de erradicação do trabalho infantil

A estrutura de algumas pesquisas domiciliares permite a avaliação do impacto de programas sociais cuja implementação é gradual e de município a município cujos objetivos são adequadamente medidos usando as variáveis da dita pesquisa. Neste trabalho, usa-se a Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) para estimar o impacto do Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil (Peti) sobre o trabalho de crianças, freqüência à escola e renda para os municípios cuja inclusão no programa se deu entre 1997 e 1999. Os resultados apresentados foram obtidos mediante a técnica de matching de Heckman, que consiste em encontrar, para cada município no programa, um município de comparação similar mas que não participa. Com este grupo de controle pode-se usar diferenças em diferenças para medir o impacto do programa. Os resultados mostram impactos positivos apenas sobre o trabalho infantil, que é o objetivo principal do programa. ________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTThe structure of some household surveys allows the evaluation of social programs which are implemented gradually by municipality and whose objectives are measurable by survey variables. We use the PNAD survey to evaluate the impact of the Program for the Eradication of Child Labor (Peti) on child labor, schooling, and income for municipalities which entered the program from 1997-1999. We present bare results and results obtained from “matching” municipalities to form a control group (differences in differences). Only the child labor impact is robust to the differences in differences analysis, which is the primary objective of the program