Nesting Expectations: What Can the Mexican and Argentinean Cash Transfers Tell Us about the Development of Development?

1969 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-169
Author(s):  
Andrés Dapuez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Transfer Programs

Latin American cash transfer programs have been implemented aiming at particular anticipatory scenarios. Given that the fulfillment of cash transfer objectives can be calculated neither empirically nor rationally a priori, I analyse these programs in this article using the concept of an “imaginary future.” I posit that cash transfer implementers in Latin America have entertained three main fictional expectations: social pacification in the short term, market inclusion in the long term, and the construction of a more distributive society in the very long term. I classify and date these developing expectations into three waves of conditional cash transfers implementation.

scholarly journals Encouraging Savings Behavior through Conditional Cash Transfers: Lessons from Latin America

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Gillian M. Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Municipal Governments ◽  
Savings Behavior ◽  
The Poor

Savings, in the form of financial capital held in formal bank accounts, are an important factor in reducing poverty. They can stimulate financial inclusion of the poor, protect against unforeseen shocks, and fund long-term investments in human and economic development. However, the poor have limited options for formal savings. In recent years, governments around the world have begun to incorporate savings into their conditional cash transfer interventions. This paper focuses on such interventions by national and municipal governments in Latin America. While the evidence base is still too small to draw any firm conclusions about short-term benefits or long-term effectiveness, there have been positive outcomes from pilot projects and adapted savings-linked conditional cash transfer programs in some countries. To ensure successful program design and implementation, governments interested in savings-linked conditional cash transfers should make sure to fully assess the political, economic, regulatory, and infrastructural conditions present in their communities.

The Anti-Incumbent Effects of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Sanches Corrêa ◽  
José Antonio Cheibub
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Transfer Programs ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer Programs ◽  
Latin American Countries

AbstractScholars concur that conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have a strong proincumbent effect among beneficiaries. Although no study has properly focused on the overall effect of cash transfers on incumbents' national vote shares, most scholars have deduced that this effect is positive; i.e., that cash transfers lead to the expansion of incumbents' electoral bases. This article analyzes survey data from nearly all Latin American countries and confirms that beneficiaries of CCT programs are more likely to support incumbents. However, it also shows that CCT programs may induce many voters who were previously incumbent supporters to vote for the opposition. As a consequence, the overall impact of cash transfers on incumbents' vote shares is indeterminate; it depends on the balance between both patterns of behavioral changes among voters. This study is the first to report evidence that cash transfer programs may have significant anti-incumbent effects.

Do Conditional Cash Transfers Empower Women? Insights from Brazil’s Bolsa Família

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-74
Author(s):  
Natasha Borges Sugiyama ◽  
Wendy Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Transfer Programs ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer Programs ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTConditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have emerged as an important social welfare innovation across the Global South in the last two decades. That poor mothers are typically the primary recipients of the grants renders easy, but not necessarily correct, the notion that CCTs empower women. This article assesses the relationship between the world’s largest CCT, Brazil’s Bolsa Família, and women’s empowerment. To systematize and interpret existing research, including our own, it puts forth a three-part framework that examines the program’s effects on economic independence, physical health, and psychosocial well-being. Findings suggest that women experience some improved status along all three dimensions, but that improvements are far from universal. A core conclusion is that the broader institutional context in which the Bolsa Família is embedded—that is, ancillary services in health and social assistance—is crucial for conditioning the degree of empowerment obtained.

Adoption and Evolution of Cash Transfer Programs in Latin America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabián A. Borges
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Low Income ◽  
School Attendance ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Transfer Programs ◽  
Robust Evidence

The last two decades witnessed an unprecedented decline in poverty across the developing world, a decline partly explained by the adoption of social cash transfer programs. Ironically, Latin America, traditionally the world’s most unequal region, has been a global trendsetter in this regard. Beginning in the late 1990s, governments across the region and across the ideological spectrum began adopting conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, which award poor families regular stipends conditional on their children attending school and/or getting regular medical check-ups, and non-contributory pension (NCP) schemes for low-income and/or uncovered seniors. There is robust evidence that CCT programs achieve their short-term goals of reducing poverty while increasing school attendance and usage of health services. However, they do not improve learning and appear to be failing at their long-term goal of breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Likely as a result of low-quality education, long-term CCT beneficiaries do not have significantly better economic prospects than comparable non-beneficiaries. CCTs also have electoral effects—there is robust evidence from across the region that they increase support for incumbent presidential candidates. CCTs were a response to the two big transformations the region underwent during the 1980s: the debt crisis and subsequent lost decade and the transition of most countries to democracy. Increased economic insecurity following the crisis and subsequent neoliberal reforms represented both a threat to the survival of newly elected governments and an opportunity for politicians to win over voters through increased social assistance. Pioneered by Mexico and Brazil in the mid-1990s, CCTs were by far the most effective policies to emerge from that context. They quickly diffused across the region, often with support from international financial institutions. Counterintuitively, adoption appears to be unrelated to the ascendance of left-wing governments in the region during the 2000s. The politics of CCT design are less understood. The myriad ways in which design can be conceptualized and measured, combined with the relative newness of this literature, have limited the accumulation of knowledge. It does appear that left-wing governments adopt more expansive CCTs and de-emphasize conditionality enforcement. Whereas their initial adoption and expansion, which coincided with the 2000s economic boom, proved politically easy, further reductions in poverty will require politically difficult choices, namely, raising taxes and/or redirecting funds away from programs benefiting the better-off. Improving the long-term effectiveness of CCTs will require improving education quality, which in turn will require challenging the region’s powerful teachers’ unions.

scholarly journals The Contentious Politics of Social Policy expansion in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3 - Sup2) ◽  
pp. 189-205
Author(s):  
César Guzmán-Concha ◽  
Rossella Ciccia
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Social Policy Reform ◽  
The Relationship

Latin America witnessed a resurgence of protests during the 1990s and early 2000s. Citizens took to the streets to protest against the liberalization of public services and rising levels of inequalities and poverty. This situation partly changed in the decade of the 2000s when the region experienced a period of sustained social policy expansion intended to extend protections to formerly excluded groups. Did popular mobilization have an influence on the turn toward universalism in Latin American social policy? This paper explores this question by looking at the relationship between protest, the strength of the Left and the adoption of expansive reforms in healthcare, conditional cash transfers and noncontributory pensions. The findings bring support to the idea that protest is a relevant aspect of the politics of social policy reform, although its effects are both sensitive to other characteristics of the political environment and the particular policy dimension considered. 

scholarly journals GASTO PÚBLICO Y CRECIMIENTO EN AMÉRICA LATINA: LA LEY DE WAGNER Y LA HIPÓTESIS DE KEYNES

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (316) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Eduardo Ramírez Cedillo ◽  
Francisco López Herrera
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Subject ◽  
America Latina ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Latin American Countries

<p>Se analiza la relación del crecimiento económico con el gasto público de 16 países latinoamericanos de 1990 a 2017. Este trabajo contribuye a la literatura sobre el tema enfocándose en la región. Los resultados de un modelo para paneles cointegrados respaldan la ley de Wagner en el largo plazo y brindan evidencia parcial a favor de las hipótesis de Keynes en el corto plazo.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p align="center">PUBLIC SPENDING AND GROWTH IN LATIN AMERICA:</p><p align="center">WAGNER´S LAW AND KEYNES’S HYPOTHESIS<strong></strong></p><p align="center"><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p><p>The relationship between economic growth and public spending in 16 Latin American countries from 1990 to 2017 is analyzed. This paper contributes to the literature on the subject focusing on the region. The results from a model of cointegrated panels support Wagner’s Law in the long term and provides partial evidence in favor of the Keynesian hypotheses in the short term.</p>

Cash transfers for families and children in Argentina, Brazil and Chile: segmented expansion or universal benefits?

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camila Arza
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Formal Sector ◽  
The Social ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
Family Allowances

AbstractOver the past two decades, most Latin American countries have developed cash transfer programmes for poor and low income families not covered by the social security system. These programmes now benefit about 127 million people throughout Latin America and in some countries they include more children than the family allowances of the social insurance system. How have these innovations changed the structure of child benefits in Latin America? This article discusses this issue by looking at the experiences of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. In these three countries, a wide-ranging programme of non-contributory cash transfers for low income families now operates alongside a pre-existing scheme of family allowances for formal sector workers. This has contributed to expand coverage of cash benefits for families and children, while at the same time keeping a segmented benefit structure. In contrast, a universal child benefit could overcome this segmentation and guarantee equal rights to all children.

scholarly journals China’s Influence in Latin America in the Brazilian Case (2002-2018)

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-407
Author(s):  
Charles Pennaforte ◽  
Nairana Karkow Bones
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
High Technology ◽  
Asian Country ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Structural Integration ◽  
Economic Improvement

In this paper the authors aim to establish the reasons that led the Chinese state to view Latin America as an important partner between 2002 and 2018 and try to analyse the development of Chinese presence in Latin America and its possible impacts and perspectives in the 21st century in Brazil. For that, both political and economic relations between China and Latin America’s countries, especially the relations between China and Brazil, and their development are examined by using a comparative and historical approach. This paper is divided in three sections. The first part characterizes the emergence of Asia as a prominent actor within the current world system and China’s participation as a major economic competitor from the 1980s. In the second section, the Chinese interest in Latin America and its importance is analysed. Finally, the influence of China in Brazil is exposed in the last section. In the conclusion, undoubtedly, the Asian country has a huge influence in areas where it conquers, especially in Latin America and Brazil, leading mainly investments and its products of both high technology and low cost. In the short term, countries that receive this type of investment see an increase in production and, consequently, an economic improvement due to the increase in the market and the consumption process. On the other hand, Latin American companies and industries do not have the technological capacity or, to a certain extent, a competitive advantage to compete with Chinese products in the long term, due to the stricter labour laws in American countries, compared to the Asian country. Hence, one of Brazil’s possible strategies for meeting the challenges of expanding relations with China is to invest in greater complementarity and structural integration of the region through MERCOSUR.

scholarly journals Long-term Societal Impacts of Conditional Cash Transfers: Bolsa Família a Decade in

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Brian Warby
Keyword(s):  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Short Term ◽  
8Th Grade ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Government Data ◽  
Municipal Level ◽  
Generational Poverty

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) are innovative poverty intervention programs that have been adapted and adopted in dozens of countries around the world. The effectiveness of the programs in the short-term have been established by a number of studies, but they have only recently been around long enough to begin to observe whether they indeed disrupt the inter-generational poverty cycle as claimed. The expected long-term effects are central to the appeal of CCT programs. This empirical study examines the data to determine whether there is evidence that the long-term effects are as apparent as the short-term effects in one of the original adopters, Brazil. The analysis examines municipal level government data using OLS regression and finds evidence that CCTs raised 8th grade graduation rates and lowered unemployment and birthrates. The conclusion is that, at least in Brazil, CCTs seem to be making headway in changing conditions that often lead to inter-generational poverty cycles.

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