"Fortunately, both poverty and extreme poverty have shown a significant decrease in Brazil. According to data from the National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios - PNAD), poverty dropped over 20 per cent between 2004 and 2013, to about 9 per cent of the...

This text describes in detail how to simulate the poverty impacts of changes in the entitlement rules and benefit values of the Bolsa Família Program. This simulation is especially challenging due to: i) the absence of a specific question on Bolsa Família income in the PNAD household survey...

This text analyzes the evolution of the cognitive abilities of Brazilian youth as measured by Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa). Our results are quite positive. In spite of an increase of youth eligible for the PISA universe and, therefore, a reduction in selectivity,...

This text examines the present monetary transfer setup for children aged 15 or less in Brazil. This setup is today composed of Bolsa Família's variable benefit, the Salário Família, and the child deduction in our Personal Income Tax. We analyze the value of each of the above benefits, as well...

In this text we address measurement, monitoring and cost issues relating to the eradication of extreme poverty in Brazil. We argue that, for the purpose of ending extreme poverty, income poverty is the relevant concept, and that an administrative extreme poverty line, decided upon politically,...

The objective of this text is to compare various approaches to defining poverty lines. The Cost of Basic Needs approach has been the most widely used method in Brazil and Latin America, there are various alternatives. In addition to the Cost of Basic Needs and Food Energy Intake methods, the...

The effect of school inputs upon educational outcomes has been extensively studies in the literature but there are still no conclusions as to its impacts. This paper presents results that suggest a strong impact of inputs upon age-grade lag for Brazilian primary schools between 1998 and 2005. We...

This text proposes a methodology for classifying the demographic bonus in education into relative and absolute components. According to this definition, a relative demographic bonus means that school age-population is increasing more slowly than total population, making more resources available,...

The following study uses two approaches to judge whether inequality in Brazil is falling fast enough. The first is to compare the variation of the Gini coefficient in Brazil with what was observed in several countries that today belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and...