The impact of Public Management Performance of Conditional Cash Transfer in Quality of Life in Brazil

Informações

Código: APB543
Divisão: APB - Administração Pública
Tema de Interesse: Tema 02 - Políticas Públicas

Autores

Marco Aurélio Marques Ferreira, Benedict S. Jimenez, Marc Holzer

Resumo

In developing countries, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs are a cornerstone of antipovertyefforts. Brazil holds the distinction of having the largest CCT program in the world.The Programa Bolsa Familia aims to provide short-term monetary assistance to poor andvulnerable households, but the receipt of transfers are conditional and based upon specificpositive behavioral changes that target children. These conditions and others are put forth inan effort to breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty. Under the federal system,however, it is the municipal governments which are ultimately responsible for implementingthe program at the local level. Formal evaluation studies have been undertaken to assess theoutcomes of Bolsa Família from the perspective of public policy. However, very few haveexamined how the program’s institutional context affects program accomplishments. Ofparticular concerns are the public management challenges and opportunities that arise whenimplementing a federal program in a decentralized political system. How does the quality ofmanagement, at both the municipal level and in the inter-governmental coordinating structure,influence the effectiveness of the cash transfer program? Does efficient management matter inachieving the program’s overall goal of improving the quality of life of local residents? Whatrole does fiscal federalism play in the success of such a program that requires the coordinationof multiple layers of government? In order to answer these questions, this paper usescomplementary methodologies particularly Data Envelopment Analysis, multivariateregression, as well as document analysis. The study, which is based in Public ManagementPerformance theories, uses data from 2007 covering municipalities in Minas Gerais, Brazil.The results draw attention to a number of important factors governing the influence of publicadministration in the quality of conditional cash transfer programs. First of all, the positiveinfluence of the Public Management in the success of the program, which was the centralhypothesis of the work, was highlighted as the main conclusion of this paper. Second, thepositive influence of public managers has been reinforced by the presence of Social PolicyBureau which affects positively the outcome of the program. Finally, federal and state transfercan be interpreted as both an intergovernmental effort and a decentralization processimportant to accomplish the mission of the program. On the other hand, the findings showedseveral factors that could be limiting improvements in public manager’s performance, amongthem the lack of control and accountability, and the lack of targeting. It is also concluded thatthe fiscal federalism accomplishes a double role in promotion of the society’s well-being. Itcan positively support intergovernmental policies and programs, as reaffirmed by theimportance of the transfers to improve citizens’ well-being. But in contrast it can promote thefiscal protectionism in small municipalities and can induce them to lower effort both to raiseproper tax revenue and to improve the quality of the public management.

Abrir PDF