The objective of this text is to compare various approaches to defining poverty lines. The Cost of Basic Needs approach has been the most widely used method in Brazil and Latin America, there are various alternatives. In addition to the Cost of Basic Needs and Food Energy Intake methods, the...

This text examines the present monetary transfer setup for children aged 15 or less in Brazil. This setup is today composed of Bolsa Família's variable benefit, the Salário Família, and the child deduction in our Personal Income Tax. We analyze the value of each of the above benefits, as well...

The following study uses two approaches to judge whether inequality in Brazil is falling fast enough. The first is to compare the variation of the Gini coefficient in Brazil with what was observed in several countries that today belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and...

This text proposes a methodology for classifying the demographic bonus in education into relative and absolute components. According to this definition, a relative demographic bonus means that school age-population is increasing more slowly than total population, making more resources available,...

Fortunately, both poverty and extreme poverty have shown a significant decrease in Brazil. According to data from the National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios - PNAD), poverty dropped over 20 per cent between 2004 and 2013, to about 9 per cent of the...

One of the goals of targeted conditional cash transfer programmes is to increase the human capital of their beneficiaries. Were it not for that, the existence of conditionalities would not make sense. The rationale is clear: the transfer alleviates poverty today, and this condition sets families...

This text attempts to estimate the impacts of the Programa Bolsa Família on grade repetition, using matched data from the Single Registry (Cadastro Único, or CadÚnico), the Attendance Project and annual School Census. The authors use three approaches: i) comparing the results for poor...

Um dos objetivos dos Programas Condicionados de Transferência de Renda (PCTRs) é o aumento do capital humano de seus beneficiários. Se não fosse por esta razão, a existência de condicionalidades não faria sentido. A racionalidade é clara: a transferência ameniza a pobreza hoje e a...

The economics profession has long debated whether there is a trade-off between growth and equity. Countries that pursued inequality-reducing strategies have been warned that growth will be affected, and hence that poverty increases. The harbingers of doom advocated a growth-focused strategy....

Owner-occupied housing and public infrastructure services are a relevant part of the income distribution whose impacts have not yet been adequately studied, at least not from the distributive point of view. This paper suggests a way to find the market value for these services using hedonic...