Conditional Cash Transfers in Brazil, Chile and Mexico: Impacts upon Inequality∗

We decompose changes in the Gini coefficient to investigate whether the Conditional Cash Tranfers (CCT) have had an inequality reducing effect in three Latin American countries: Brasil, Mexico and Chile. We conclude that CCT programs helped reducing inequality between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s. The share of total income represented by the CCTs is very small, less than 1%. But as their targeting is outstanding, the equalising impact of CCTs was responsible for about 21% of the fall in Brazilian and Mexican inequality figures In Chile the effect was responsible for around 15% of the reduction. Clasificación JEL: D31 Palabras clave/keywords: Conditional Cash Transfers, CCT, Inequality, Gini decomposition, transferencias de ingreso condicionales, desigualdad, descomposi-