Conditional cash transfers, schoolingand child labor: micro-simulating bolsa escola

François Bourguignon, Francisco Ferreira and Phillippe Leite
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Phillippe Leite: World Bank and Department of Economics PUC-Rio

No 477, Textos para discussão from Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil)

Abstract: Cash transfers targeted to poor people, but conditional on some behavior on their part, such as school attendance or regular visits to health care facilities, are being adopted in a growing number of developing countries. Even where ex-post impact evaluations have been conducted, a number of policy-relevant counterfactual questions have remained unanswered. These are questions about the potential impact of changes in program design, such as benefit levels or the choice of the means-test, on both the current welfare and the behavioral response of household members. This paper proposes a method to simulate the effects of those alternative program designs on welfare and behavior, based on microeconometrically estimated models of household behavior. In an application to Brazil’s recently introduced federal Bolsa Escola program, we find a surprisingly strong effect of the conditionality on school attendance, but a muted impact of the transfers on the reduction of current poverty and inequality levels.

Keywords: Conditional Transfers; Demand for Schooling, Child Labor JEL Codes: I38, J13, J22, J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2003-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Conditional Cash Transfers, Schooling and Child Labor: Micro-Simulating Bolsa Escola (2003)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rio:texdis:477

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