The Impact of Bolsa Escola Program on Child’s Grade Progression Rates in Brazil

Ana P. Verona, University of Texas at Austin

In the last decade Brazil implemented a set of social programs. Among them, the Brazilian government carried out the Bolsa Escola Program (BEP), which had three ambitious objectives: to reduce current poverty; to increase educational attainment among children; to reduce child labor. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of the BEP on child’s education. One of the contributions of this paper is to employ the Grade Progression Rates (GPR). This measure is a decomposition technique of years of schooling. Using data from a sub-sample of the 2003 Brazilian National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), this paper employs as an econometric method the “Propensity Score Matching”. It compares the mean difference in GPR of those who received the cash transfer to the GRP of those who did not. Findings from these analyses will show the impact of BEP on GPR of children from 7 to 14 years old.