Ana Carolina Pereira Zoghbi

Mensurando o desempenho e a eficiência dos gastos estaduais em educação fundamental e média

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative performance and efficiency of Brazilian states in the provision of basic and secondary education. In order to do so performance indicators are initially built using quantitative and qualitative variables. These indicators are then used as products in order to capture cross-states differences in the levels of efficiency. The results indicate that the States with better performance are not necessarily the most efficient. Besides, for the great majority of States there is room to improve efficiency by moving towards best practice in public resources management.

The effects of early childhood education on literacy scores using data from a new Brazilian assessment tool

The aim of this study was to identify the effects of early childhood education (ECE) on literacy scores of 2nd grade students in elementary school. To do that, the Provinha Brasil was administered in Sertaozinho-SP, in conjunction with a socioeconomic questionnaire. Despite external validity problems, the evaluation of the effects of ECE in one municipality is advantageous, as we can estimate the effects of one kind of treatment. Other studies ignore this fact. Often, they estimate an average effect of various treatments effects (not just one), as they use data from different municipalities where ECE programs have different levels of quality. The OLS and Propensity Score Matching results show that students who started school at the ages of 5, 4, and 3 years had literacy scores between 12.22 and 19.54 points higher than those who began school at the age of 6 years or later.

Demanda Mediana por Serviços Públicos e Desempenho Eleitoral: Evidências do Modelo do Eleitor Mediano para os Municípios Brasileiros

The aim of this work is to empirically test the validity of the median voter model for the Brazilian case. The test was made feasible by the possibility of reelection established in 1997 by the Reelection Amendment. With municipal information from the Demographic Census and from TSE for the year of 2000, we identified the bundle offered by candidates running for reelection as the expenditures realized during their first terms. Next, we estimated the demand for local public services. Relaxing the assumption of perfect information of candidates in relation to the median demand, and imposing a weaker hypothesis, of rational expectations, we justified the estimation of a measure of misperception of candidates for re-election in relation to median demand. Next, we estimated the impact of the module of this measure on the electoral performance of mayors incumbents using a selection model. The result suggests that the median voter model is valid for the case of Brazilian municipalities.

Produtividade relativa dos setores público e provado em educação: impactos sobre a escolha da escola pela família

The purpose of this paper is to verify whether families take into account the educational productivity differentials between the private and public sectors (in terms of proficiency) when deciding on their childrens schools. The production functions for each sector using Heckman Model revealed a productivity differential in favor of the private sector. An increase on the performance differential in Mathematics and Reading increases the odds of families choosing the private sector. Also, the higher the proportion of white students and the greater the difference in socioeconomic status of students in the private sector compared to public sector, the more likely a family will choose the private sector.