In-kind transfers in Brazil: household consumption and welfare effects

Bruno Palialol () and Paula Pereda ()

No 2019_26, Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP)

Abstract: Programa de Alimentação dos Trabalhadores (PAT) creates tax incentives for firms to provide 20 million workers with in-kind transfers in Brazil. Economic theory supports they are distortive when compared to cash transfers but this is not clear when the latter are subject to payroll taxes. Using a propensity score analysis we find evidence that PAT increases poor households food consumption between 15.7% and 25.0% and deadweight loss associated with distortions reach US$63.1 (R$150.1) million. Overconsumption, however, may not be increasing worker’s nutrition, as aimed by the program.

Keywords: In-kind transfers vs cash transfers; Programa de Alimentação dos Trabalhadores (PAT); Propensity score analysis. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D12 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-07-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.repec.eae.fea.usp.br/documentos/Palialol_Pereda_26WP.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spa:wpaper:2019wpecon26

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pedro Garcia Duarte ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).