O efeito do gasto social sobre a pobreza na Bahia

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the persistence of high poverty rates in Bahia (40.1% in 2021), despite significant volumes of social spending. The overall objective is to analyze the impact of municipal social spending in the areas of Education, Health, Social Assistance, and Administration on the poverty rate in Bahia municipalities from 2010 to 2023, controlling for political, institutional, and regional factors. The reviewed literature points to the relevance of the composition of spending and the quality of governance, and this work contributes by integrating the analysis of the quality of municipal spending with the reduction of regional poverty, addressing the methodological challenge of endogeneity. The methodology employed a dynamic panel model for the 417 municipalities (2010 to 2021). The Arellano- Bond estimator (GMM in differences), controlling for poverty inertia. The poverty rate was measured by the proportion of beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família Program. The model included political variables (election year) and institutional variables (judgment of accounts by the TCM-BA). The main results indicate that poverty has strong temporal inertia, municipal spending on health has the most significant and robust effect on poverty reduction, institutional quality (approval of accounts) is associated with lower poverty rates, suggesting that good management enhances social effects, the political-electoral cycle showed an average reduction in poverty in election years, spending on education did not show a significant impact in the short term, and there is a marked regional heterogeneity in poverty levels.