No Impact of Rural Development Policies? No Synergies with Conditional Cash Transfers? An Investigation of the IFAD-Supported Gavião Project in Brazil

Steven Helfand (), Lorena Viera Costa () and André Souza
Additional contact information
Lorena Viera Costa: Federal University of Viçosa

No 201814, Working Papers from University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics

Abstract: Public policies frequently are implemented simultaneously rather than in isolation. We estimate the impacts—and possible synergies—of a rural development project (Pro-Gavião) and the Brazilian conditional cash transfer program (Bolsa Família). In partnership with the State Government of Bahia, Pro-Gavião was an IFAD-supported rural development project in 13 contiguous municipalities between 1997 and 2005. Census tract level data were extracted for the analysis from the 1995-96 and 2006 Agricultural Censuses. The evaluation uses propensity score matching to construct a control group of untreated census tracts, and a difference-in-differences estimation to identify impacts. The outcomes analyzed include land productivity, agricultural income and child labor. Although Pro-Gavião involved significant investments in the region, the results suggest little if any program impact, or synergies between the two programs. The unexpected null findings are robust to alternative approaches to identifying the treated census tracts, matching techniques, and heterogeneity of impacts by initial level of poverty. We show that the lack of impacts is not driven by adverse rainfall in the treated communities, or the influence of other programs in the control communities. Alternative explanations for the null results are explored.

Keywords: Rural development projects; Conditional Cash Transfers; IFAD; Synergies; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 Pages
Date: 2018-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-lam
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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https://economics.ucr.edu/repec/ucr/wpaper/201814.pdf First version, 2018 (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: No impact of rural development policies?: no synergies with conditional cash transfers?: an investigation of the IFAD-Supported Gavião Project in Brazil (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucr:wpaper:201814

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