The literature on social protection in Latin America – and more specifically on Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) – is substantial and growing as, increasingly, more academics from around the world seem to be attracted to social policy developments in the region and the role of CCTs in these developments. As the articles in our themed section cite many of the key sources on particular aspects of CCTs, we chose in this guide to highlight those sources we consider essential for any academic interested to investigate CCTs and, more broadly, the development of social policies in Latin America for research or teaching purposes.
Academic publications
Influential academic publications in English on the evolution and impact of social policies in Latin America, including CCTs (listed by date of publication).
Filgueira, C. and Filgueira, F. (2002) ‘Models of welfare and models of capitalism: the limits of transferability’, in Huber, E. (ed.), Models of Capitalism: Lessons for Latin America, Pennsylvania, USA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, pp. 127–58.
De Ferranti, D., Perry, G., Ferreira, F. and Walton, M. (2004) Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean: Breaking with History, Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.
Barrientos, A. (2004) ‘Latin America: towards a liberal-informal welfare regime’, in Gough, I. and Wood, G. (eds.), Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Segura-Ubiergo, A. (2007) The Political Economy of the Welfare State in Latin America: Globalization, Democracy, and Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martínez Franzoni, J., Molyneux, M. and Sánchez-Ancochea, D. (eds.) (2009) ‘Latin American capitalism: economic and social policy in transition’, Economy and Society, 38, 1 Special Issue, 1–16.
López Calva, L. F. and Lustig, N. (2010) Declining Inequality in Latin America: A Decade of Progress, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
Dion, M. (2010) Workers and Welfare: Comparative Institutional Change in Twentieth-Century Mexico, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press.
Borges Sugiyama, N. (2011) ‘The diffusion of conditional cash transfer programs in the Americas’, Global Social Policy, 11, 2–3, 250–78.
Huber, E. and Stephens, J. (2012) Democracy and the Left: Social Policy and Inequality in Latin America, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Lustig, N., Pessino, C. and Scott, J. (eds.) (2014) ‘Analyzing the redistributive impact of taxes and transfers in Latin America’, Public Finance Review, 42, 3 Special Issue.
Fritz, B. and Lavinas, L. (eds.) (2015) A Moment of Equality for Latin America?: Challenges for Redistribution (Entangled Inequalities: Exploring Global Asymmetries), Surrey: Ashgate.
Lomelí, E. V. (2008) ‘Conditional cash transfers as social policy in Latin America: an assessment of their contributions and limitations’, Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 475–99.
von Gliszczynski, M. (2015) Cash Transfers and Basic Social Protection: Towards a Development Revolution? London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Details on CCT schemes and relevant organisations
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, http://www.cepal.org/en.
Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, http://www.cepal.org/oig/default.asp?idioma=IN.
World Bank Conditional Cash Transfers – Country Overviews and Project Information, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALPROTECTION/EXTSAFETYNETSANDTRANSFERS/0,,contentMDK:22055402~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:282761,00.html.
Fiszbein, A., Schady, N. R. and Ferreira, F. H. G. (2009) Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty, World Bank Policy Research Report 47603, Washington, DC: World Bank. The Appendix of this book offers extensive descriptions of national schemes.
Sources, reports and evaluations
Marshall, C. and Hill, P. S. (2015) ‘Ten best resources on conditional cash transfers’, Health Policy and Planning, 30, 6, 742–46, http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/6/742.long.
Some of the reports that can be consulted for an overview of the history and outcomes of conditional cash transfers in Latin America are the following:
Cecchini, S., Filgueira, F., Martínez, R. and Rossel, C. (eds.) (2015) Towards a Universal Social Protection: Latin American Pathways and Policy Tools, Santiago: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
Cecchini, S. and Madariaga, A. (2011) Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes: The Recent Experience in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), http://www.cepal.org/en/publications/conditional-cash-transfer-programmes-recent-experience-latin-america-and-caribbean.
Levy, S. (2006) Progress against Poverty Sustaining Mexico's Progresa-Oportunidades Program, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
Fizsbein, A. and Schady, N. (2009) Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty, Washington, DC: World Bank.
CEPAL (2014) Transferencias de ingresos para la erradicación de la pobreza Dos décadas de experiencia en los países de la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR), Santiago: Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (only available in Spanish).
Governments throughout the region publish information on conditional cash transfer programmes. They can be accessed through the websites of each country's government or the institutions that have conducted evaluations. The information may be available in Spanish or Portuguese only in the case of Brazil.
The International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI) publishes the evaluations that it has conducted for a number of programmes in the region, http://www.ifpri.org/publication/conditional-cash-transfers-latin-america.
The Mexican government has published most of the internal and external evaluations of its programmes since 1997, many of them in English, https://prospera.gob.mx/EVALUACION/index1.php.
ELLA (Evidence and Lessons from Latin America), a civil society initiative that seeks to transfer successful policies to other so-called ‘developing’ regions, publishes a compilation of evaluations from several countries, all in English, http://ella.practicalaction.org/ella-knowledge/?thema=conditional-cash-transfers.
Databases and indicators
Probably the most complete source for socio-economic data and information on Latin America is the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Its information system is called CEPALSTAT. The site includes statistics, indicators and publications, covering conditional cash transfers and other social protection policies. http://estadisticas.cepal.org/cepalstat/web_cepalstat/Portada.asp?idioma=i.
ECLAC maintains a database of conditional cash transfer programmes of all countries in the region. Information on social pensions and labour and productive inclusive programmes by country are also available. http://dds.cepal.org/bdptc/en/
López-Calva and Urzúa coordinated the project Fiscal Schemes for Inclusive Development, which considered the construction of micro-simulation models of taxes and benefits, including conditional cash transfers, using data from national surveys for five Latin American countries. The design of the project can be consulted here:
López-Calva, L. F. and Urzúa, C. (eds.) (2011) Sistemas de Impuestos y Prestaciones en América Latina, Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), http://alejandria.ccm.itesm.mx/egap/documentos/LIB-2011-01.pdf (only the sections for Brazil and Mexico are in English).
Outcomes of the project can be found here:
Urzúa, C. (ed.) (2012) Fiscal Inclusive Development: Microsimulation Models for Latin America, México, DF: Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), http://alejandria.ccm.itesm.mx/egap/documentos/LIB-2012-02.pdf.
The models for each of the countries included in the project can be accessed here:
• Brazil: http://ideas.repec.org/c/ega/comcod/201102.html.
• Guatemala: http://ideas.repec.org/c/ega/comcod/201104.html.
• Chile: http://ideas.repec.org/c/ega/comcod/201103.html.
• Mexico: http://ideas.repec.org/c/ega/comcod/201105.html.
• Uruguay: http://ideas.repec.org/c/ega/comcod/201106.html.
Barrientos, Nino-Zarazua and Maitrot integrated a database of social assistance policies in developing countries, which includes information on conditional cash transfer programmes of Latin American countries.
Barrientos, A., Nino-Zarazua, M. and Maitrot, M. (2010) Social Assistance in Developing Countries database version 5, Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper Series. https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:101628&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) [http://www.social-protection.org/gimi/gess/ShowTheme.action?id=10] and the World Bank [http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALPROTECTION/EXTSAFETYNETSANDTRANSFERS/0,,contentMDK:20615138~menuPK:282766~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:282761,00.html] also publish data on conditional cash transfer programmes by country, but information may not be as updated as in ECLAC's database.
There are a great number of additional sources of comparative and country-specific data not included here because of lack of space. The guest-editors would be happy to provide information on them upon request.
