Financing of social assistance policy in federative contexts : the cases of Argentina and Brazil (2003-2015)

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to present and analyze the financing of social assistance policy in the Argentine and Brazilian federations from 2003 to 2015, highlighting the social assistance services and direct income transfers. It also sought to explore possible effects of different equity financing mechanisms on policy delivery. For this, the focus of the comparison between the two countries was fiscal centralism in the social assistance policy, captured from its two dimensions: jurisdictional and spending. The assumption adopted is that federative arrangements with greater fiscal centralism, that is, with greater Union participation in financing regulation and public policy spending, may favor its more equitable supply throughout the national territory. The methodological strategy was the technique of case studies involving the comparison of two South American federal democracies. For this, a bibliographic review, legislation analysis and secondary data were used, obtained through databases made available on governmental open access portals on the Internet. The main conclusion is that social assistance in Argentina and Brazil has a similar trajectory in terms of the positive evolution of spending between 2003 and 2015, with emphasis on non-contributory pensions and conditional cash transfer programs. However, they differ in spending, decentralization of competencies and jurisdictional centralization of social assistance services.