Abstract
Abstract This article evaluates the role of the Brazilian federal Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) such as Bolsa Família and Bolsa Escola during the past recent years and discusses their future. Based on previous empirical evidence based on my own work, I propose an integrated framework with two complementary perspectives. The first perspective is a goal approach based on the short term aggregated influences exerted by these programs, organized under four headings, namely: equality, prosperity, stability and sensibility. The emphasis here is to compare the results of Bolsa Família with other official programs such as BPC and Social Security benefits. The second perspective follows a means approach inspecting the microeconomic mechanisms through which CCTs operate, comparing the impacts on CCTs beneficiaries versus non-beneficiaries. Such perspective helps in dialoguing about the relevance of different CCTs attributes, and to discuss possible desirable upgrades.
Highlights
Income inequality and poverty decreased in Brazil and in most of Latin America countries since the beginning of the new millennium, when Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) became widespread throughout the continent
What exactly was the contribution of CCTs for this outcome? Considering the slowdown of growth and the lack of fiscal space, is the CCTs agenda over? This article evaluates the role played by Brazilian CCTs at the federal level such as Bolsa Família and Bolsa Escola during the recent years and discusses their future
The targeting indicator for the labor income is around 1, reaching 0.97 in 2012, which means that a transfer of one Real from Bolsa Família will increase the social welfare by about 3.22 times than that of one Real earned from the labor market
Summary
Income inequality and poverty decreased in Brazil and in most of Latin America countries since the beginning of the new millennium, when Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) became widespread throughout the continent. The first perspective is a goal-approach based on the short run macroeconomic influences exerted by these programs, organized under four headings, namely: equality, prosperity, stability and sensibility This approach is useful to evaluate the overall past performance of the programs, including impacts on a vast array of social welfare measures. It is useful to consult the details of previous work on CCTs and to discuss desirable upgrades Another fourfold taxonomy is proposed including: a) the impacts on the current family budget constraint through its payment system; b) the direct welfare effects of giving priority to low-income beneficiaries in the provision of public services and other merit goods (such as sewage and health services); c) augmenting individual production function through different conditionalities on basic education and by productive inclusion initiatives such as professional education; and d) launching a new agenda aimed to provide better access to markets to the poor and/or improving their ability to smooth adverse shocks through savings, credit and insurance instruments, as well as financial education and consumer protection. The article emphasizes the connection between CCTs and the content of the international social agenda (e.g. the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals), as well as it discusses the role played by CCTs in order to integrate various sectoral policies targeted at the poor population, implemented at different government levels
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