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

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.

Tax reform under fiscal stress: a CGE analysis of the Brazilian tax reform

In spite of a general agreement over the distortion imposed by the current Brazilian tax system, attempts to reform it during the last decade have faced several restrictions to its implementation. Two of these restrictions were particular binding: a) fiscal adjustment restriction (public sector debt cannot increase), b) fiscal federalist restriction (revenues from individual states and municipalities cannot decrease). This paper focuses on a specific reform that overcomes in principle the fiscal federalist restriction. Using Auerbach and Kotlikoff (1987) model calibrated for the Brazilian economy, I analyze the short and long run macroeconomic effects of this reform subject to the fiscal adjustment restriction. Finally, I look at the redistributive effects of this reform among generations as a way to infer about public opinion’s reaction to the reform. The reform consists basically of replacing indirect taxes on corporate revenues, which I show to be equivalent to a symmetric tax on labor and capital income, by a new federal VAT. The reform presented positive macroeconomic effects both in the short and long run. Despite a substantial increase in the average VAT rate in the first years after the reform, a majority of cohorts experienced an increase in their lifetime welfare, being potentially in favour of the reform.

The long-term effects of conditional cash transfers on child labor and school enrollment

This paper investigates the long-term e ects of conditional cash transfers on school attainment and child labor. To this end, we construct a dynamic heterogeneous agent model, calibrate it with Brazilian data, and introduce a policy similar to the Brazilian Bolsa Fam lia. Our results suggest that this type of policy has a very strong impact on educational outcomes, sharply increasing primary school completion. The conditional transfer is also able to reduce the share of working children from 22% to 17%. We then compute the transition to the new steady state and show that the program actually increases child labor over the short run, because the transfer is not enough to completely cover the schooling costs, so children have to work to be able to comply with the program's schooling eligibility requirement. We also evaluate the impacts on poverty, inequality, and welfare.

Essays on health care reform, wealth inequality, and demography

This thesis contains three chapters. The first chapter uses a general equilibrium framework to simulate and compare the long run effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and of health care costs reduction policies on macroeconomic variables, government budget, and welfare of individuals. We found that all policies were able to reduce uninsured population, with the PPACA being more effective than cost reductions. The PPACA increased public deficit mainly due to the Medicaid expansion, forcing tax hikes. On the other hand, cost reductions alleviated the fiscal burden of public insurance, reducing public deficit and taxes. Regarding welfare effects, the PPACA as a whole and cost reductions are welfare improving. High welfare gains would be achieved if the U.S. medical costs followed the same trend of OECD countries. Besides, feasible cost reductions are more welfare improving than most of the PPACA components, proving to be a good alternative. The second chapter documents that life cycle general equilibrium models with heterogeneous agents have a very hard time reproducing the American wealth distribution. A common assumption made in this literature is that all young adults enter the economy with no initial assets. In this chapter, we relax this assumption – not supported by the data – and evaluate the ability of an otherwise standard life cycle model to account for the U.S. wealth inequality. The new feature of the model is that agents enter the economy with assets drawn from an initial distribution of assets. We found that heterogeneity with respect to initial wealth is key for this class of models to replicate the data. According to our results, American inequality can be explained almost entirely by the fact that some individuals are lucky enough to be born into wealth, while others are born with few or no assets. The third chapter documents that a common assumption adopted in life cycle general equilibrium models is that the population is stable at steady state, that is, its relative age distribution becomes constant over time. An open question is whether the demographic assumptions commonly adopted in these models in fact imply that the population becomes stable. In this chapter we prove the existence of a stable population in a demographic environment where both the age-specific mortality rates and the population growth rate are constant over time, the setup commonly adopted in life cycle general equilibrium models. Hence, the stability of the population do not need to be taken as assumption in these models.

Tax performance and reform in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS)

Includes bibliography

Knuckling Under? School Superintendents and Accountability-Based Educational Reform

The goal of this article is to explore the various ways that superintendents have responded to accountability-based educational reform efforts such as No Child Left Behind, the factors that have influenced their responses, and the implications of these responses for current and future educational leaders. With respect to the first issue, empirical data from a number of nationai studies (T. E. Glass & Franceschini, 2007; Johnson, Arumi, & Ott, 2006; Johnstone, Dilkkers, & Luedeke, 2009; Stecher et al., 2008) make clear that while there have been a variety of responses from superintendents to accountability-based reform efforts, superintendents have mostly played a supportive role. Examining the situation more fully suggests that the driving factors behind superintendent support for accountability-based educational reform are complex and are often deeply embedded within the "DNA" of the role of superintendent. This article examines the structure of this DNA by looking at the factors that influence superintendents' views of accountability-based educational reform from historical, political, and institutional perspectives. This muitifaceted approach provides new insights into the complex relationship that exists between the structure of the role of superintendent and the agency of the individuals who inhabit that role.

Comparative Analyses of Child and Youth Services in Europe

This paper contains a comparative evaluation of the reactions of welfare states to the isomorphic pressures emanating from the European Union based on two case studies taken from the Child and Youth Welfare System. In the European Community different concepts of welfare policy exist. In the unification process every member state has to find answers to the pressure of assimilation invoked by the legislation. The objective of this explorative study is to show that countries can learn from each other in order to improve their own system of social services.

Choosing the Path of Austerity: How Policy Coalitions Shape Welfare-policy Choices in Periods of Fiscal Consolidation

In general, fiscal adjustments are associated with significant reductions in social spending. Hence, the welfare state is not spared from austerity. Because the welfare state is still central to party competition, this is electorally risky. The paper addresses the following questions: Do left parties differ from their centrist and rightist competitors in the design of austerity measures? And does government type has an impact on the extent to which austerity policies rely on social spending cuts? By comparing 17 OECD countries between 1982 and 2009 we show that if governments embark on a path to austerity, their ideology does not have a significant effect on the magnitude of welfare state retrenchment. However, if major opposition parties and interest groups rally against social spending cuts, a broad pro-reform coalition is a crucial precondition for large fiscal consolidation programs to rely on substantial cuts to social security.

Choosing the path of austerity: how parties and policy coalitions influence welfare state retrenchment in periods of fiscal consolidation

What are the conditions under which some austerity programmes rely on substantial cuts to social spending? More specifically, do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which austerity policies imply welfare state retrenchment? This article demonstrates that large budget consolidations tend to be associated with welfare state retrenchment. The findings support a partisan and a politico-institutionalist argument: (i) in periods of fiscal consolidation, welfare state retrenchment tends to be more pronounced under left-wing governments; (ii) since welfare state retrenchment is electorally and politically risky, it also tends to be more pronounced when pursued by a broad pro-reform coalition government. Therefore, the article shows that during budget consolidations implemented by left-wing broad coalition governments, welfare state retrenchment is greatest. Using long-run multipliers from autoregressive distributed lag models on 17 OECD countries during the 1982–2009 period, substantial support is found for these expectations.

Analyses of maternal and child mortality rates of five West African countries: Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone

After traveling to a small country in West Africa last summer, I became interested in learning more about the maternal, infant, and child death rates of that particular region of the continent. For the purposes of this paper I limited the number of countries that would be included in this research to five: Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. There are three hypotheses that were considered when conducting the research for this paper. The first was that there is no difference in the under five mortality rates for Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. The second hypothesis was that there is no difference in the female literacy rates for Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. The final hypothesis was that there is no difference in the male literacy rates for Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. The data used were collected from publicly available sources that include the CIA World Factbook, the WHO website, the UNICEF website, the Penn World Data table, and the World Bank website. The p-values that were calculated for all three hypotheses were found to be very significant, and all three of the null hypotheses were rejected. ^

Parental substance abuse as a risk factor for physical child abuse and neglect: A systematic review of the literature

Case control and retrospective studies have identified parental substance abuse as a risk factor for physical child abuse and neglect (Dore, Doris, & Wright, 1995, May; S. R. Dube et al., 2001; Guterman & Lee, 2005, May; Walsh, MacMillan, & Jamieson, 2003). The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a systematic review of prospective studies from 1975 through 2005 that include parental substance abuse as a risk factor for physical child abuse or neglect. Characteristics of each study such as the research question, sample information, data collection methods and results, including the parent assessed and definitions of substance abuse and physical child abuse and neglect, are discussed. Five studies were identified that met the search criteria. Four of five studies found that parental substance abuse was a significant variable in predicting physical child abuse and neglect.^

Infectious diseases, immune status, and health insurance among child care providers in Houston, Texas

The objectives of this study were to compare female child-care providers with female university workers and with mothers of children in child-care centers for: (1) frequency of illness and work loss days due to infectious diseases, (2) prevalence of antibodies against measles, rubella, mumps, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, chickenpox and cytomegalovirus (CMV), and (3) status regarding health insurance and job benefits.^ Subjects from twenty child-care centers and twenty randomly selected departments of a university in Houston, Texas were studied in a cross-sectional fashion.^ A cluster sample of 281 female child-care providers from randomly selected child-care centers, a cluster sample of 286 university workers from randomly selected departments and a systematic sample of 198 mothers of children from randomly selected child-care centers.^ Main outcome measures were: (1) self-reported frequency of infectious diseases and number of work-days lost due to infectious diseases; (2) presence of antibodies in blood; and (3) self-reported health insurance and job benefits.^ In comparison to university workers, child-care providers reported a higher prevalence of infectious diseases in the past 30 days; lost three times more work-days due to infectious diseases; and were more likely to have anti-core antibodies against hepatitis B (odds ratio = 3.16 95% CI 1.27-7.85) and rubella (OR 1.88, 95% CI 1.02-3.45). Child-care providers had less health insurance and job-related benefits than mothers of children attending child-care centers.^ Regulations designed to reduce transmission of vaccine and non-vaccine preventable diseases in child-care centers should be strictly enforced. In addition policies to improve health insurance and job benefits of child-care providers are urgently needed. ^

For Safety’s Sake: A Case Study of School Security Efforts and Their Impact on Education Reform

Several studies have shown that the need to create safe and orderly schools has increasingly been addressed in a manner that disconnects these priorities from broader concerns related to student success, school culture, and child development. In this paper, we explore the consequences of expanding security procedures in response to an incident involving interracial conflict at an urban high school in the United States. We offer this case study to demonstrate how the primacy placed on safety and security resulted in the neglect of other important educational goals, such as academic engagement and a positive school culture. Through an analysis of observational, interview, focus group, and survey data, we show that while it is essential for schools to take measures that ensure the safety of students and staff, it is equally important for safety to be recognized as part of a larger set of goals that schools must concurrently pursue in order to meet the educational and developmental needs of the students they serve.

Where does Philippine education go? : the "K to 12" program and reform of Philippine basic education

In 2012 the Philippines launched its "K to 12" Program, a comprehensive reform of its basic education. Through this reform, the Philippines is catching up with global standards in secondary education and is attaching a high value to kindergarten. The structure, curricula, and philosophy of the education system are undergoing reform and improvement. The key points of the new policy are "preparation" for higher education, "eligibility" for entering domestic and overseas higher educational institutions, and immediate "employability" on graduating, all leading toward a "holistically developed Filipino". This policy appears admirable and timely, but it faces some pedagogical and socioeconomic problems. The author wants to point out in particular that the policy needs to address gender problems and should be combined with demand-side approaches in order to promote poverty alleviation and human development in the Philippines.

The Economics of EU Railway Reform. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 8/2004

The EU began railway reform in earnest around the turn of the century. Two ‘railway packages’ have meanwhile been adopted amounting to a series of directives and a third package has been proposed. A range of complementary initiatives has been undertaken or is underway. This BEEP Briefing inspects the main economic aspects of EU rail reform. After highlighting the dramatic loss of market share of rail since the 1960s, the case for reform is argued to rest on three arguments: the need for greater competitiveness of rail, promoting the (market driven) diversion of road haulage to rail as a step towards sustainable mobility in Europe, and an end to the disproportional claims on public budgets of Member States. The core of the paper deals respectively with market failures in rail and in the internal market for rail services; the complex economic issues underlying vertical separation (unbundling) and pricing options; and the methods, potential and problems of introducing competition in rail freight and in passenger services. Market failures in the rail sector are several (natural monopoly, economies of density, safety and asymmetries of information), exacerbated by no less than 7 technical and legal barriers precluding the practical operation of an internal rail market. The EU choice to opt for vertical unbundling (with benefits similar in nature as in other network industries e.g. preventing opaque cross-subsidisation and greater cost revelation) risks the emergence of considerable coordination costs. The adoption of marginal cost pricing is problematic on economic grounds (drawbacks include arbitrary cost allocation rules in the presence of large economies of scope and relatively large common costs; a non-optimal incentive system, holding back the growth of freight services; possibly anti-competitive effects of two-part tariffs). Without further detailed harmonisation, it may also lead to many different systems in Member States, causing even greater distortions. Insofar as freight could develop into a competitive market, a combination of Ramsey pricing (given the incentive for service providers to keep market share) and price ceilings based on stand-alone costs might be superior in terms of competition, market growth and regulatory oversight. The incipient cooperative approach for path coordination and allocation is welcome but likely to be seriously insufficient. The arguments to introduce competition, notably in freight, are valuable and many e.g. optimal cross-border services, quality differentiation as well as general quality improvement, larger scale for cost recovery and a decrease of rent seeking. Nevertheless, it is not correct to argue for the introduction of competition in rail tout court. It depends on the size of the market and on removing a host of barriers; it requires careful PSO definition and costing; also, coordination failures ought to be pre-empted. On the other hand, reform and competition cannot and should not be assessed in a static perspective. Conduct and cost structures will change with reform. Infrastructure and investment in technology are known to generate enormous potential for cost savings, especially when coupled with the EU interoperability programme. All this dynamism may well help to induce entry and further enlarge the (net) welfare gains from EU railway reform. The paper ends with a few pointers for the way forward in EU rail reform.