An essential question about policies that aim to foster socio-economic inclusion and income generation - which is the case of policies that support market access - is their capacity to guarantee a sustainable process of the economic capacities of their beneficiaries. In this study, the Brazilian...

In several OECD countries, ongoing fiscal consolidation might have a negative impact on the static income distribution. However, this conclusion should be treated only as an approximate first step in the analysis. A full assessment of distributional effects of consolidation packages would need...

This paper is prepared as a chapter for the Handbook of Income Distribution, Volume 2 (edited by A. B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, Elsevier-North Holland, forthcoming). Like the other chapters in the volume (and its predecessor), the aim is to provide a comprehensive review of a particular area...

Herein, the influence of institutions and of social and political preferences upon the design and the implementation of the Brazilian non contributive income cash transfer to the elderly and disabled poor - Benefício de Prestação Continuada (BPC) - is analyzed. The main argument is that...

Bangladesh has achieved notable progress in poverty reduction including reduction in extreme poverty since 1990. Still a good proportion of the people in the country are living in extreme poverty and suffering from various kinds of deprivation and marginalization. It is therefore important to...

This study aims to present microsimulations of the future of non-contributory social transfers in Brazil, discussing trade-offs of benefit designs, estimating costs and impacts on poverty and inequality and assessing operational and budgetary issues. We simulate the adoption of three different...

In this paper we analyze Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios Contínua (PNAD Contínua) microdata from 2012 to 2018 to document how the mid-decade economic recession reversed the trend of pro-poor growth that dated back to the early 2000s. Since the recession, there was a rise in...

Using friendship data from Facebook, we study the effects of three aspects of social capital on household financial behavior. We find that the most important measure of social capital in explaining stock market and saving participation is Economic Connectedness, defined as the fraction of one's...

We test the ability of SNAP eligible households to smooth consumption when facing unexpected transitory income shocks stemming from the 2018-19 government shutdown. In response to the shutdown, all states were federally mandated to pay February SNAP benefits on or before January 20th. This...