Ensaios sobre seguro rural

Abstract

This thesis consists of three essays where the causal impacts of the Rural Insurance Award Grant Program (PSR) in Brazil are evaluated. In the first trial an impact assessment of the PSR on the value of agricultural production and diversity of family farmers' production is carried out for the period 2007 to 2017. The empirical strategy used was Difference-in-Differences applying the estimator proposed by Sun and Abraham (2021) combined with the Entropy Balancing technique, for a set of data at the level of Family Units of Agrarian Production (UFPA)obtained from the Declarations of Aptitude to the National Program for Strengthening Family Farming (DAP). The results indicate that the PSR contributed to increase the gross value of production, without influencing the productive diversity of family farmers. In the second trial, the impacts of the PSR on the productivity and efficiency of agricultural activity in Brazil, in the time horizon from 2002 to 2018, were evaluated. In this context, the empirical strategy of Difference-in-Differences was used applying the estimator proposed by Callaway and Sant'Anna, (2021), in a set of data at the municipal level. The results indicate that the PSR did not influence the productivity and production efficiency of the crops analyzed, with aggregated data at the municipality level. Finally, the third trial evaluated the impacts of PSR on environmental infractions, from 1996 to 2018. As an empirical strategy, we used the causal inference approach of Bayesian Structural Time Series (BSTS). The results indicate that the PSR contributed to reduce environmental infractions related to agricultural activity, agricultural inputs, and water resources. On the other hand, there are indications that the program contributed to an increase in deforestation and burning infractions.