Desenho de um sistema de metas sociais

This paper discusses the economic rationality of a system of social targets, as a way for the federal government to increase efficiency in the use of its social budget transferred to municipalities. The paper develops extensions of a standard principal-agent framework in various directions including static models with and without imperfect information. The results of the static models show that the use of the standard focalization criteria where the poorest municipalities get more resources may lead to adverse incentives to poverty eradication. We also show that unconditional transfers from the federal government crowds-out local social expenditures. This paper argues in favor of the use of contracts where the greater the improvement in relevant social indicators, the more resources each municipality would receive. The introduction of imperfect information in the model basically generates a penalty to the poor segments in areas where local governments are less averse to poverty. An advantage of the contract with social targets is to reduce the problem of political favoritism when certain social groups receive greater, or smaller, attention from specific governments. With the establishment of social targets it becomes possible to generate proper incentives, so that social spending is distributed more equitably among groups.