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This paper evaluates the impact of land reforms on household agricultural investments, livelihood strategies, and income levels in Brazil. Given the persistence of rural poverty in Northeast Brazil and the existence of both land and credit market failures, land reforms remain important policy tools for alleviating poverty and increasing growth. This paper evaluates the impact of the recent National Program of Land Credit, a controversial market-assisted land reform program that provides access to land through private land markets. Household-level panel data covering similar beneficiary and control groups allows for identification using both propensity score weighting and difference-in-difference methodologies. The evidence indicates that the Land Credit successfully transitions households into agriculture, with land holdings and investments increasing as a result of the program. As with many earlier land reform programs in Latin America, the new wave of market-assisted land reforms does not increase access to private credit. While land reforms have the potential to drive redistribution, poverty reduction, and growth, these findings suggest that ensuring greater access to credit, irrigation, and higher return economic activities remains important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper investigates whether small-scale water supply systems implemented and operated by water user associations increase access to piped water supply in rural Brazil by more than systems by local governments. Starting from 15% to 16% in the year 2000, access rates in rural areas with water user associations increased to 33.4% in 2010. In areas with local government supply systems, access rates only increased to 24.9%. Based on data from Brazilian census and the national water and sanitation survey, the empirical analysis in this paper shows that the observed difference is effectively due to project-type choice. Additionally it points toward higher accountability as a potential reason for better results of community-based projects. In municipalities where social groups requested a new system before the local government started implementation and therefore public awareness for the project was higher, the increase in access rates is comparable to the increase in municipalities with water user association projects. The same is true if local media is present or political competition in local elections is higher. As the effect of project type on access rates might be confounded by simultaneous drivers of project-type choice and access rates, the quantitative analysis is based on a difference-in-difference estimator in combination with kernel matching to overcome the endogeneity of project type. The treatment effect revealed by this analysis is robust to various specification changes and the robustness checks show no structural differences between treatment and control groups that could bias the results. The calculation of matching weights for the kernel matching is informed by semi-structured interviews with academics and sector experts in Brazil explaining the determinants of project choice. The interviews highlight the political economy behind infrastructure expansion in rural Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The present paper considers a sometimes contentious process of land reform presently occurring in Brazil. This process, referred to in the paper as Direct Action Land Reform (DALR), involves organizations such as the Landless Rural Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST) and more spontaneous actions of individuals desiring a piece of land for their own. Results of a survey covering 751 households engaged in such land reform actions in the Brazilian Amazon are presented, in order to describe participants and land reform processes. Evidently, social movement organizations provide for a modest degree of wealth accumulation, a welfare improvement that must be set against potential environmental costs. The paper concludes by calling attention to the challenge DALR may ultimately pose to the Brazilian state. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Brazilian firms used to dominate the brazil nut (BN) market to such an extent that the product still carries the country’s name. In a surprising twist, 77% of all BNs are now processed and exported by Bolivia, a country with far fewer resources than its neighbor. This paper analyzes the impact of EU regulations on the global BN market. It finds that Bolivian producers prevailed because they joined forces to revamp their manufacturing practices and meet EU sanitary standards despite continued mutual mistrust. In contrast, Brazilian producers have been unable to work cooperatively and lost access to the European market entirely. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper investigates whether the use of participatory budgeting in Brazilian municipalities during 1990–2004 affected the pattern of municipal expenditures and had any impact on living conditions. It shows that municipalities using participatory budgeting favored an allocation of public expenditures that closely matched popular preferences and channeled a larger fraction of their budgets to investments in sanitation and health services. This change is accompanied by a reduction in infant mortality rates. This suggests that promoting a more direct interaction between service users and elected officials in budgetary policy can affect both how local resources are spent and living standard outcomes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Brazilian politicians have long relied on pork and clientelism to win political support, and recent literature suggests that little has changed. However, researchers have yet to systematically investigate whether political criteria influence the distribution of funds through Bolsa Família. This is especially surprising given the program’s prominence in the international community. In this paper, I examine whether political criteria explain the federal government’s distribution of Bolsa Família. I find little evidence that political criteria explain the difference between the number of poor families that live in a municipality and the number of families that receive support. I conclude by discussing the broader significance of this large, programmatic policy to Brazil’s political development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper examines the relationship between the employment of children and their mothers, with the aim of informing discussion on efforts to reduce child labor in Brazil. The analysis builds on the largely separate literatures on children’s time use and mothers’ work in two ways—by examining characteristics of employment which are often not available in survey data, and by modeling both children’s work and mothers’ employment. The results suggest that the relationship between children’s and mothers’ work is complex, with substantial evidence of positive correlation. The findings are consistent with the argument that anti-poverty programs that target women’s employment could result in increased child labor. This possibility warrants further analysis in order to better inform policy regarding child labor. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper, following an analysis developed by Stark et al. [Stark, D., Vedres, B., & Bruszt, L. (2006). Rooted transnational publics: integrating foreign ties and civic activism. Theory and Society, 35(3), 323–349] in Hungary, investigates whether NGOs that engage in transnational interactions are becoming less domestically integrated. We first comment on the proliferation of civic organizations and the hopes they have brought for a borderless civil society. Secondly, we discuss the literature on the implications of the north–south power asymmetry and the dependency on foreign funds for the accountability and responsiveness of South NGOs. The third section looks at survey data for Brazil to check if the concerns of the literature about the combination of domestic and foreign ties hold true. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• We investigated certification and auditing of soy in western Bahía, in the most dynamic agricultural frontier in Brazil. • We draw on 72 semi-structured interviews and a systematic analysis of public audit reports from RTRS-certified farms. • Certification and auditing have not successfully protected the access of local communities to land and water. • Shortcomings are explained by the business-dominated nature of RTRS, auditing practices and domestic contextual factors. The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing have served to protect local communities' access to land and water in western Bahía state in the Cerrado's Matopiba region. We draw on findings from field research in Brazil and western Bahía, 72 semi-structured interviews with corporate, state and civil society actors, and a systematic analysis of audit reports from RTRS-certified farms in Bahía. We find that auditing practices are not effective in protecting the rights and access of local communities to land and water due to three inter-related sets of factors: 1) the business-dominated nature of the drafting and content of the RTRS standard, 2) the structural limitations and everyday practices of auditing, and 3) domestic and local contextual factors in Brazil and western Bahía. This study aims to contribute to a re-thinking and re-assessment of certification and auditing practices and suggests that new approaches are required to govern global commodity chains in a more environmentally just way. We advocate for a locally embedded and community-sensitive perspective in research on certification and auditing, to complement previous research in the fields of critical political economy and sustainability governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose two indexes to account for the vulnerability related to COVID-19. • The northern and northeastern regions of Brazil have the highest degree of vulnerability from exposure to COVID-19. • The Indigenous population is the most vulnerable to infection with COVID-19 and is the most impoverished monetarily. • The Brown and Black populations are also at a disadvantage compared to the White and Asian groups. • Most states with the highest vulnerability from exposure to COVID-19 have also had the largest increase in death rates. This paper aims to show how much and in which way people in Brazil are deprived in terms of indicators directly related to the capacity to prevent and recover from infection with COVID-19. We use the Alkire-Foster (AF) method and a fuzzy-set approach as complements to measure multidimensional poverty within the context of the coronavirus pandemic. We propose two pandemic-specific indexes to account for the vulnerability related to the capacity to prevent infection with and to recover from the disease. The outcomes reveal structural deprivations in the country and considerable inequality among regions and ethnic groups. Rank correlation analyses suggest that the proposed indexes can trace the trends in increasing infection and a higher mortality rate in vulnerable regions. Compared to headcount ratio results, the fuzzy measures have more precise outcomes and are better able to capture the evolution in mortality patterns. Our empirical evidence offers an additional warning that the pandemic responses need to prioritize the most vulnerable groups and reinforces the need for coordinated national action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]