Conditional Cash Transfers, Schooling, and Child Labor : Micro-Simulating Brazil's Bolsa Escola Program

Bourguignon, Francois; Ferreira, Francisco H.G.; Leite, Phillippe G.

doi:10.1093/wber/lhg018

Publication: Conditional Cash Transfers, Schooling, and Child Labor : Micro-Simulating Brazil's Bolsa Escola Program

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Date

2003-05

Published

2003-05

Author(s)

Bourguignon, Francois

Ferreira, Francisco H.G.

Leite, Phillippe G.

Abstract

A growing number of developing economies are providing cash transfers to poor people that require certain behaviors on their part, such as attending school or regularly visiting health care facilities. A simple ex ante methodology is proposed for evaluating such programs and used to assess the bolsa escola program in Brazil. The results suggest that about 60 percent of poor 10- to 15-year-olds not in school enroll in response to the program. The program reduces the incidence of poverty by only a little more than one percentage point, however, and the Gini coefficient falls just half a point. Results are better for measures more sensitive to the bottom of the distribution, but the effect is never large.

Citation

“Bourguignon, Francois; Ferreira, Francisco H.G.; Leite, Phillippe G.. 2003. Conditional Cash Transfers, Schooling, and Child Labor : Micro-Simulating Brazil's Bolsa Escola Program. World Bank Economic Review. © Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17179 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO.”