Avaliação da eficiência dos centros de referência de assistência social no Brasil

Brazilian Welfare Policy, in its basic protection dimension, is implemented by public structures called as Referencial Centers of Social Assistence (Cras), which work at the local level (municipalities), but are organized, coordinated, legislated and co-financed by the federal government. This paper aims to measure relative efficiency of the operation of the Cras' units, using data envelopment analysis - DEA, in order to identify inefficient cases which could be targeted to be verified later in order to improve their performances. In addition, the paper aims to foster the use of efficiency measures, since financial transfers by the federal government are based on indicators related to the infrastructure available disregarding any information related to efficiency.