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A Spatial Analysis of Bolsa Família: Is Allocation Targeting the Needy?
Abstract
Social inequality is a continuing problem in Brazil, but as president, Luiz Inãcio Lula da Silva has focused more attention on the issue than his predecessors. When he took office in January 2003, Lula created the new Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome) to manage the country’s investments aimed at reducing poverty, combating hunger, increasing school attendance, and improving the number of people—especially children—who receive basic health care. One such program, Bolsa Família (Family Fund), is based on a direct transfer of funds to low-income families that agree to keep their children in school and provide them with basic health care. Its main purpose is to provide “households the incentives to invest in human capital and thereby reduce poverty [and minimize social inequalities] in the long-run” (de Janvry et al. 2005: 1).
... Indeed, this program has been the topic of many recent studies (Marques et al., 2004;Neri, 2005;Brière and Lindert, 2005;Hall, 2006;Lavinas, 2006;Soares et al., 2006;and Oliveira et al., 2007). For instance, Haddad (2008a) demonstrated that BF targets municipalities with population who need the benefits the most, showing that President Lula's compensatory policies are minimizing the traditional patterns of poverty and social injustice that characterize the country. ...
... Among the bottom 10 states with rural expenditure in school transport services per enrolled child are the states of the least developed region of Brazil (Northeast region) and the state of Rio de Janeiro. It is important to highlight that BF funds have their highest concentration in the Northeast region (Haddad, 2008a). Therefore, we can observe a mismatch between BF and school transport services investments, causing decreases in government returns. ...
... By examining the 2006 federal government allocation of funds for school transport services, PNATE, we can observe that states located in the Northeast, where BF allocation is concentrated (Haddad, 2008a), have lower rural expenditure in school transport services per enrolled child. This fact indicates an imbalanced allocation. ...
... Main objectives of Lula's administration were economic development and reduction of income inequality, both in the society as a whole and in regional context. [42] One major program to fight extreme poverty was Bolsa Família, which was partly successful as discussed in [44,45] and detectable in the development of the Gini index 2 shown in figure 2.8. [6,7] During the presidency of Lula not only the total and the per capita GDP increased, see figure 2.7, but also the Gini index decreased. ...
This work investigates the Brazilian electricity system to integrate power production of wind and photovoltaic. An approach is presented to develop load profiles for Brazilian households for the economic assessment of distributed generation and storage. For the case of centralized integration using large hydropower reservoirs, the work shows the region-specific results of a linear optimization model. Several scenarios cover a wide range of possible demand, fuel, and battery prices.
... Al asumir su primer periodo presidencial, Lula dio una fuerte señal respecto a la reducción de la pobreza en su gobierno. Creó el Ministerio de Desarrollo Social y Combate contra el Hambre para gestionar las inversiones públicas dirigidas a combatir el hambre, disminuir la pobreza, mejorar la asistencia escolar y la atención de salud (Haddad, 2009). En términos políticos, académicos como K. Weyland (1996) plantean que el desarrollo político brasileño se caracterizó por ser una democracia sin equidad que terminó dañando la cohesión social. ...
... The fact that BF elasticity increased from 2003 to 2006 supports BF's positive impact on enrolment under President Lula's first mandate. Finally, to advance the type of analysis presented in this paper, it would be recommended to change the spatial unit of analysis, since intra-municipal variations may be masked when working at the municipal level (Haddad, 2003). However, spatial disaggregated data— lower than municipality—is very unlikely to be available in Brazil. ...
This paper examines whether the Brazilian social programme Bolsa Família is contributing to greater social equality within the country. As a measure of success, we rely on the programme's impact on public-school enrolment, which we consider an input for social equity. Our findings show that policy makers should continue with the same system of allocation used in 2006, which proved to be contributing to greater social equality. We suggest policy maker's direct attention to the 2006 residual map depicting municipalities that have extremely over- and under-predicted values, which may represent misallocation of public funds, and therefore may require some scrutiny. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The author considers the implementation of the Real Plan that suppressed destructive inflation and was aimed at the integration of the country into the process of globalisation. It is important that the policies of the governments of F.H. Cardoso, L.I. Lula da Silva and D. Rousseff are scrutinised together, with the focus on the continuity rather than the differences between them. Both political tracks combined a neoliberal financial-economic policy with a social-democratic approach to social problems. The main achievements of this policy, the evident reduction of poverty and decrease of income inequality, as well as the diminution of the interregional disparities, are also considered in the chapter. However, reality was much harder than initial expectations for change, the obvious achievements in social policy notwithstanding.
Both the contemporary normative discourse and the emerging consensus on development insists on putting in place social institutions (including states) that are developmental (in that they sustain high rates of growth and the structural transformation of economies), that are socially inclusive and that are sanctioned by democratic processes that fully respect the human rights of all citizens. Such an understanding can be surmised from the many resolutions of major international conferences of the 1990s and is reflected at the national level in struggles for democracy, equity and the clamour for bringing development back onto the economic policy agenda. On a more theoretical level, this understanding of development has been succinctly stated by Amartya Sen (1999) in his Development as Freedom in which he argues that economic development, equity and democracy are mutually constitutive.
Over the last 25 years, Brazil has experienced profound economic changes. Following the international economic instability of the late 1970s and the debt crisis of the early 1980s, Brazil launched structural adjustment programmes with the intention of solving external account imbalances and controlling high inflation rates. In 1990, Brazil undertook a major break from a century-long era of import-substitution strategy (ISI) that left its economy essentially closed towards the end of the 1980s, and introduced economic reforms involving trade and capital account liberalization, the privatization of state companies, the deregulation of markets and a successful stabilization plan. These reforms have been reshaping the economy very rapidly and are giving rise to economic transformations. Table 14.1 shows, however, that the pre-reform per capita output growth rate is significantly higher than that of the post-reform period (1990–2004). The social indicators are also disappointing. Poverty is at a very high level for a middle-income country and has been reduced only very slowly, while income inequality is not only at a very high level, but has also increased over time. To the extent that structural reforms are widely understood to be conducive to growth and be pro-poor, these statistics suggest that something went wrong.
It is commonly observed that levels of economic development tend to be roughly correlated with levels of social development in countries throughout the world. This observable cross-country correlation, however, does not necessarily indicate a direct causal relationship between economic and social development in any particular case. The existence of numerous outliers — countries in which social indicators are either lower or higher than expected based on their economic indicators — suggests that social development is a complex process influenced by a variety of factors. In particular, the ability of some countries to reach a level of social development distinctly superior to what would be expected on the basis of their level of per capita income suggests that social development need not wait for economic development, but can — and indeed should — be specifically and deliberately pursued by countries at every level of economic development.
Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries: Review of Lessons and Experience reviews the lessons learned from 122 antipoverty interventions in 47 transition and developing countries to quantify targeting outcomes and their determinants and to inform the design and implementation of common targeting methods. In addition to providing co mparative quantitative analysis on targeting outcomes and their determinants, the authors provide a qualitative treatment of common targeting methods. In each case, they review international experiences: how the methods work, what determines how well they work, what costs are likely to be incurred, and what are appropriate circumstances for use. The authors also provide a brief review of targeting, discussing the benefits and costs of targeting, methods for assessing targeting performance, and a taxonomy of targeting methods. The findings include the following: • Targeting has the po tential to increase the effectiveness of these interventions; the median program transfers 25 percent more to the poor than a universal or random allocation. However, targeting is not assured to work: about 25 percent of targeted programs actually delivered to the poor less than a universal or random allocation would have. • No sing le preferred method has emerged for all types of programs or all country contexts. Indeed, of all variation observed in targeting outcomes, only 20 percent was accounted for by the choice of targeting method. Means testing, geographic targeting, and self-selection based on a work requirement are the most robustly progressive methods. Proxy means testing, community-based targeting, and demographic targeting to young children can be progressive but demonstrate large variability in outcomes. Demographic targeting to the elderly, subsidization of food commodities, and community bidding for projects show limited potential for good outcomes. • Successful outcomes are critically dependent on the method of implementation.
A growing number of developing economies are providing cash transfers to poor people that require certain behaviors on their part, such as attending school or regularly visiting health care facilities. A simple ex ante methodology is proposed for evaluating such programs and used to assess the bolsa escola program in Brazil. The results suggest that about 60 percent of poor 10- to 15-year-olds not in school enroll in response to the program. The program reduces the incidence of poverty by only a little more than one percentage point, however, and the Gini coefficient falls just half a point. Results are better for measures more sensitive to the bottom of the distribution, but the effect is never large.