Income Transfer Policies and Nutritional Condition of Children: An Evaluation of “Bolsa Família”

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mônica Viegas Andrade ◽  
Flávia Chein ◽  
Rafael Perez Ribas ◽  
Jaume Puig-Junoy
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Status ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Baseline Survey ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

This paper investigates the impact of the Bolsa Familia program, a conditional cash transfer program focused on Brazilian poor families, on children‘s nutritional status in a context of low monitoring of conditionalities. The analysis is carried out using data from a baseline survey conducted in 2005, the “Bolsa Família” Impact Evaluation Research. The evaluation is made using the Propensity Score Matchingtechnique. Besides considering observational differences between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of Bolsa Família Program, our empirical strategy also addresses some concerns about informational issues in order to take into account potential endogeneity of the decision to participate in the Program. Our final results show a positive effect of Bolsa Família Program on children nutritional status only whencontrolling for the informational bias and for those children fulfilling educational requirements; however, this positive impact on nutritional status is restricted to BMIfor-age but does not affect height-for-age.

The influence of Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer program on child labor in Brazil

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paloma Santana Moreira Pais ◽  
Felipe de Figueiredo Silva ◽  
Evandro Camargos Teixeira
Keyword(s):  
Child Labor ◽  
School Attendance ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Sample Survey ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Brazilian Government ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The Brazilian Government created the Bolsa Familia program to combat poverty and the insertion of so many children into the labor market. This program is an income transfer program subject to certain conditions such as a minimum school attendance for children under 17 years of age. In 2006, almost half of the people with an income per capita of R$300.00 (US$139.53) per month declared that they received this benefit. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of Bolsa Familia on child labor in Brazil in 2006. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a propensity score matching model with data from the National Household Sample Survey PESQUISA NACIONAL POR AMOSTRA DE DOMICÍLIOS (PNAD), for 2006. Findings Results indicate that the program increased the number of hours of child labor in Brazil. However, this outcome might be explained by the fact that those families who received Bolsa Familia were also those with higher socioeconomic vulnerability. Thus, they need to guarantee their survival with the income generated via child labor. Social implications The Brazilian Government needs to invest not only in monetary transfer policies but also in the improvement of the job market to create opportunities for the social development of children. Originality/value The contribution of the paper is the investigation into the effect of the Bolsa Familia program on the average time allocated to child labor; the authors find that this time allocation could be reduced by requiring a compulsory school attendance.

scholarly journals Evaluating the impact of the Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer program on premature cardiovascular and all-cause mortality using the 100 million Brazilian cohort: a natural experiment study protocol

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e039658
Author(s):  
Julia M Pescarini ◽  
Peter Craig ◽  
Mirjam Allik ◽  
Leila Amorim ◽  
Sanni Ali ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Survival Models ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Transfer Scheme ◽  
All Cause Mortality ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Brazilian Cohort

IntroductionBrazil’s Bolsa Familia Program (BFP) is the world’s largest conditional cash transfer scheme. We shall use a large cohort of applicants for different social programmes to evaluate the effect of BFP receipt on premature all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.Methods and analysisWe will identify BFP recipients and non-recipients among new applicants from 2004 to 2015 in the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort, a database of 114 million individuals containing sociodemographic and mortality information of applicants to any Brazilian social programme. For individuals applying from 2011, when we have better recorded income data, we shall compare premature (age 30–69) cardiovascular and all-cause mortality among BFP recipients and non-recipients using regression discontinuity design (RDD) with household monthly per capita income as the forcing variable. Effects will be estimated using survival models accounting for individuals follow-up. To test the sensitivity of our findings, we will estimate models with different bandwidths, include potential confounders as covariates in the survival models, and restrict our data to locations with the most reliable data. In addition, we will estimate the effect of BFP on studied outcomes using propensity score risk-set matching, separately for individuals that applied ≤2010 and >2011, allowing comparability with RDD. Analyses will be stratified by geographical region, gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic position. We will investigate differential impacts of BFP and the presence of effect modification for a combination of characteristics, including gender and race/ethnicity.Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by the ethics committees of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and the University of Glasgow College of Medicine and Veterinary Life Sciences. The deidentified dataset will be provided to researchers, and data analysis will be performed in a safe computational environment without internet access. Study findings will be published in high quality peer-reviewed research articles. The published results will be disseminated in the social media and to policy-makers.

scholarly journals The Impact of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program on Household Income in Colombia

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Diana Hincapié
Keyword(s):  
Income Distribution ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Labor Income ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Transfer Programs ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer Program ◽  
The Impact

This paper estimates the impact of Familias en Acción, the largest Colombian conditional cash transfer program, on household income. It uses a Quantile Regression methodology and Difference-in-Difference estimators to capture the impact of the program on household income at different quantiles of the income distribution. The estimations show that the program has a positive impact on household income, and that this impact is larger for the households at the lower quantiles of the income distribution. Additional analyses examine whether these results stem from changes in labor market participation or increases in non-labor income. There is some indication that for program participants there was a decrease in labor income, while there was an increase in subsidies or non-labor income. Implications of these findings for conditional cash transfer programs are discussed.

scholarly journals Impacto del programa Asignación Universal por Hijo en los resultados educativos y las tareas de los estudiantes en Argentina

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Monserrat Serio ◽  
Martina Herrera
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Average Treatment Effect ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
The Impact ◽  
School Tasks

This paper explores the effect of the principal conditional cash transfer program known as Asignación Universal por Hijo (AUH) of Argentina on educational outcomes such as attendance, performance in reading and mathematics, and grade repetition. Also, we analyze the impact on non-school tasks that students performed which can replace the time dedicated to studying and permanence in the school. We use the Aprender 2016 assessment database focusing on data of students from primary and high school. We use non-experimental data exploiting the question about if the student’s family is a beneficiary of the AUH. We perform a Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) and estimate the average treatment effect on the treated of the program. The results show that the AUH had a positive impact on attendance augmenting the probability of not being absent from class fewer than eight and seventeen days in 1.3 p.p and 1 p.p., respectively. However, positive effects on educational performance and conducting of non-school tasks are not found. We also found heterogeneous effects, for male students the program increases the probability of missing fewer classes at all levels between 0.4 p.p. and 1.5 p.p. and students from rural areas and public schools have reassigned non-school tasks.

scholarly journals Nonlinear Pricing in Village Economies

Econometrica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orazio Attanasio ◽  
Elena Pastorino
Keyword(s):  
Price Discrimination ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Nonlinear Pricing ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Reduced Form ◽  
Quantity Discounts ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Market Participation ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

This paper examines the prices of basic staples in rural Mexico. We document that nonlinear pricing in the form of quantity discounts is common, that quantity discounts are sizable for basic staples, and that the well‐known conditional cash transfer program Progresa has significantly increased quantity discounts, although the program, as documented in previous studies, has not affected unit prices on average. To account for these patterns, we propose a model of price discrimination that nests those of Maskin and Riley (1984) and Jullien (2000), in which consumers differ in their tastes and, because of subsistence constraints, in their ability to pay for a good. We show that under mild conditions, a model in which consumers face heterogeneous subsistence or budget constraints is equivalent to one in which consumers have access to heterogeneous outside options. We rely on known results to characterize the equilibrium price schedule, which is nonlinear in quantity. We analyze the effect of nonlinear pricing on market participation as well as the impact of a market‐wide transfer, analogous to the Progresa one, when consumers are differentially constrained. We show that the model is structurally identified from data on prices and quantities from a single market under common assumptions. We estimate the model using data on three commonly consumed commodities from municipalities and localities in Mexico. Interestingly, we find that relative to linear pricing, nonlinear pricing is beneficial to a large number of households, including those consuming small quantities, mostly because of the higher degree of market participation that nonlinear pricing induces. We also show that the Progresa transfer has affected the slopes of the price schedules of the three commodities we study, which have become steeper as consistent with our model, leading to an increase in the intensity of price discrimination. Finally, we find that a reduced form of our model, in which the size of quantity discounts depends on the hazard rate of the distribution of quantities purchased in a village, accounts for the shift in price schedules induced by the program.

scholarly journals Income transfer policies and the impacts on the immunization of children: the Bolsa Família Program

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 1347-1358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mônica Viegas Andrade ◽  
Flávia Chein ◽  
Laetícia Rodrigues de Souza ◽  
Jaume Puig-Junoy
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Immunization Schedule ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Income Transfer ◽  
Its Regions ◽  
Matching Technique ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer Program ◽  
The Impact

This paper investigates the impact of the Bolsa Família Program on the immunization of children from 0 to 6 years of age in Brazil and its regions. The Bolsa Família program is a conditional cash transfer program. One of its conditionalities is the compliance of children with the immunization schedule ordered by the Ministry of Health. The evaluation was performed using the Propensity Score Matching technique. We used data from a survey conducted in 2005 evaluating the program - Pesquisa de Avaliação de Impacto do Programa Bolsa Família. The main findings suggest that the Bolsa Família Program does not affect the immunization status of children.

Reducing Poverty Intensity: What Alternative Poverty Measures Reveal about the Impact of Brazil's Bolsa Família

2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 143-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Bither-Terry
Keyword(s):  
Substantial Reduction ◽  
Order Reduction ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Continuous Variable ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Poverty Measure ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
The Impact

AbstractBrazil's conditional cash transfer program Bolsa Família (Family Allowance) has gained a worldwide reputation as an effective antipoverty program. However, studies applying the dominant headcount poverty measure, which counts the percentage of households falling below a given poverty line, only credit the program with a first-order reduction in poverty (and extreme poverty) of 0.15 to 1.88 percentage points. This raises the puzzle of how such a modest impact could lead to Bolsa Família's political popularity. This article argues that Bolsa Família does dramatically reduce poverty, but measuring this impact requires thinking of poverty as how far a household is from meeting its basic human needs; choosing a continuous variable; and using income gap, intensity, and ordinal measures that reflect this conceptualization. The more substantial reduction of poverty intensity helps explain the program's reputation.

Anti-Poverty Transfers and Poverty Reduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Barrientos
Keyword(s):  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer Program

This chapter examines the role that public policy initiatives—specifically anti-poverty transfers—have played in the reduction of poverty and inequality in Brazil. A number of anti-poverty initiatives are considered in turn, and not just the widely known Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer program. The analysis establishes that such transfers—including conditional cash transfers—have proved surprisingly effective, even helping to tackle long-standing income inequality. It is recognized that explicit anti-poverty initiatives were not the only drivers of the reduced incidence of poverty and inequality: factors such as growth and improved access to labor markets also played a role. However, progress is now threatened by the recent economic and political crisis.

scholarly journals Impact of Bolsa Família Program on the nutritional status of children and adolescents from two Brazilian regions

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naiara SPERANDIO ◽  
Cristiana Tristão RODRIGUES ◽  
Sylvia do Carmo Castro FRANCESCHINI ◽  
Silvia Eloiza PRIORE
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Status ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Nearest Neighbor ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Overweight Children ◽  
Impact Measurement ◽  
Measurement Analysis ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Nutritional Status Of Children ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACT Objective: To assess and compare the impact of the Bolsa Família Program (Family Allowance) on the nutritional status of children and adolescents from the Brazilian Northeastern and Southeastern regions. Methods: The study used data from a database derived from a subsample of the Family Budget Survey conducted from 2008 to 2009. The ratios of underweight, stunted, and overweight children were calculated. Impact measurement analysis was preceded by propensity score matching, which matches beneficiary and non-beneficiary families in relation to a set of socioeconomic features. The nearest-neighbor matching algorithm estimated the program impact. Results: The ratio of underweight children and adolescents was, on average, 1.1% smaller in the beneficiary families than in the non-beneficiary families in the Northeastern region. As for the Southeastern region, the ratio of overweight children and adolescents was, on average, 4.2% smaller in the beneficiary families. The program did not affect stunting in either region. Conclusion: The results showed the positive impact and good focus of the program. Thus, once linked to structural actions, the program may help to improve the nutritional status and quality of life of its beneficiaries.

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