Banca de DEFESA: Vivian de Fátima Amorim

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : Vivian de Fátima Amorim
DATE: 09/12/2022
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: A defesa será realizada por videoconferência
TITLE:

Essays on Public Primary Education in Brazil

KEY WORDS:

Primary Education. 2. Difference-in-differences. 3. DEA. 4. Nonexperiemental evaluation. 5. Education Expenditures.

PAGES: 165
BIG AREA: Ciências Sociais Aplicadas
AREA: Economia
SUMMARY:

The first chapter of this thesis investigates the impacts of the school closures adopted in São Paulo/Brazil amid the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. I find evidence that a three-week shutdown leads to a reduction in test scores equivalent to at least six weeks of schooling. The effects are more pronounced among the state-managed schools, where I estimate a decrease of 0.19 standard deviation in fifth graders’ proficiency in Portuguese and a decrease of 0.26 standard deviation in students’ proficiency in math. In locally-managed schools, the effects are restricted to math and are equivalent to a 0.18 standard deviation. The second chapter explores the impacts of Acelera, an intervention that has been implemented in Recife/Brazil since 2010, and focus on primary education students who are at least one year older than the adequate age for their grade and who lag behind their peers. The program aims to increase learning levels and grade promotion, and decrease dropout and age-grade distortion. I do not find evidence that Acelera increases students’ proficiency in reading and math. Nonetheless, my estimates suggest that the program increases grade promotion by 22.6% and decreases age-grade distortion by 17%. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that students with fewer years of age-grade distortion tend to benefit more from the intervention. The third chapter assesses the inefficiency of public primary education expenditures in Brazilian municipalities. I estimate that local authorities efficiently use between 72% to 83% of their resources. This means that by increasing their efficiency, for example adopting the best practices of the municipalities on the efficient frontier, there would be a fiscal space of at least 86 billion BRL, which is more than twice the 2022 Bolsa Família budget, the most import conditional cash transfer in the country. An amount that could be allocated to interventions to increase students’ performance in a post-pandemic context where they are so much needed.

BANKING MEMBERS:
Externo à Instituição - CAIO CORDEIRO RESENDE
Interna - 6404931 - MARIA EDUARDA TANNURI PIANTO
Interno - 2003700 - MICHAEL CHRISTIAN LEHMANN
Externo à Instituição - Paulo Augusto Meyer Nascimento
Interno - 1981130 - RAFAEL TERRA DE MENEZES