Ensaios em Economia da Educação: impacto da política pública de ensino no Brasil

Abstract

Early childhood education is established in Law No. 9,394/1996, known as the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB), as the first stage of basic education, comprising daycare centers, intended for children aged zero to three years, and preschools, aimed at children aged four to five years. The expansion of enrollment at this level has been a central focus of Brazilian educational policy in recent decades, being essential to ensuring the right to education and promoting social and economic development. In this context, the National Program for the Restructuring and Acquisition of Equipment for the Public Early Childhood Education Network – Proinfância was established in 2007, with the objective of financing the construction, expansion, and restructuring of early childhood education facilities through federal government funds transferred to municipalities. The first essay of this dissertation aims to assess the effects of Proinfância on two fundamental dimensions: (i) the academic performance of students in the early years of elementary education, and (ii) the labor market participation of women at the municipal level, over the period from 2001 to 2023. The methodology employed is based on the Difference-in-Differences with Multiple Periods approach, following Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021), which allows for the estimation of causal effects considering the staggered adoption of the policy by municipalities over time. The results indicate that the program had a significant positive impact on the expansion of enrollments in early childhood education, as well as on improvements in academic performance, particularly in Portuguese and mathematics in the 5th grade. Furthermore, although the expansion of early childhood education through Proinfância led to advances in coverage, its impact on formal female employment appears to be limited or nonexistent at the national level. The main contribution of this essay is to provide robust empirical evidence on the multiple effects of expanding early childhood education in Brazil, reinforcing the role of public policies in promoting educational equity and enhancing female economic participation. The second essay aims to evaluate the efficiency of Brazilian municipalities in converting public educational resources into student performance outcomes, with a focus on the effects of the implementation of the New FUNDEB, during the period from 2009 to 2023. This analysis is grounded in the understanding that education is a strategic driver for human, economic, and social development, as well as a core commitment of countries under the United Nations 2030 Agenda, particularly within Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which aims to ensure inclusive, equitable, and quality education for all. Despite advances in the financing of basic education over recent decades, Brazil continues to face persistent challenges in translating increased investment into effective improvements in learning outcomes, as reflected in the stagnation of indicators such as IDEB and SAEB. In response, this essay seeks to determine whether the changes introduced by the New FUNDEB have positively influenced the efficiency of municipalities in managing educational resources. To this end, two complementary methods were employed. In the first stage, the study applied the Dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis (Dynamic DEA) based on the Slacks- Based Measure (SBM) model proposed by Tone and Tsutsui (2010). This approach allows for the measurement of intertemporal technical efficiency of municipalities in converting inputs—such as public expenditures, enrollments, and infrastructure—into educational outcomes, considering the cumulative effects over time. In the second stage, a truncated regression with bootstrap, following the methodology of Simar and Wilson (2007), was used to identify how structural, fiscal, and institutional characteristics of municipalities impact their efficiency scores, particularly in the context of the financial restructuring brought about by the New FUNDEB. The findings reveal that the New FUNDEB, through the VAAT and VAAR equalization mechanisms, has played a significant role in improving efficiency scores, especially among small and medium-sized municipalities, which tend to have lower fiscal capacity and greater structural vulnerabilities. This result highlights the redistributive nature of FUNDEB, not only as a financial equalization mechanism but also as a driver for improving the efficiency of educational resource management. On the other hand, the study demonstrates that increasing financial resources alone is not sufficient to ensure meaningful improvements in educational quality, particularly in the upper years of elementary education. Factors such as effective school management, teacher qualification, adequate infrastructure, and local socioeconomic conditions remain decisive in determining the efficiency levels of municipalities. The contributions of this study are threefold: (i) it presents an unprecedented application of the Dynamic Network DEA model with SBM across all Brazilian municipalities, covering a longterm horizon both before and after the implementation of the New FUNDEB; (ii) it incorporates a two-stage analysis using the robust truncated regression with bootstrap proposed by Simar and Wilson (2007), enabling the identification of the external determinants of municipal efficiency; and (iii) it provides empirical evidence capable of informing the design of more effective public policies, grounded in productivity, distributive justice, and a focus on reducing educational inequalities. Nevertheless, the study is subject to limitations, including reliance on quantitative indicators (IDEB and SAEB), incomplete data availability for some municipalities, and the challenge of capturing qualitative factors related to school management, organizational climate, and community engagement. Moreover, external shocks—such as economic crises or political changes—are not fully incorporated into the model. In summary, the results reinforce that, given Brazil’s historical challenges, it is not enough to simply invest more in education—it is essential to invest better. The improvement of basic education in Brazil requires not only adequate financial resources but also efficient, equitable, and strategically oriented management, with a strong commitment from municipal, state, and federal governments to build educational systems that are more inclusive, sustainable, and capable of fostering long-term social and economic development.