We assessed whether the Bolsa Família Program contributes to increase the fertility among the beneficiaries, since the increase in family size, up to a certain limit, leads to an increase in the benefits. We use a count model in which we test and treat the possibility of endogeneity of the policy variable by two different methods (two-stage method in the spirit of Heckman's models and GMM) and we control for several cofactors obtained from the National DHS (2006). The results show that the PBF didn't have such effect, at least for the beginning of the program. Rather, the beneficiaries seem to be more inclined to trade quantity for quality than non-beneficiaries eligible for the program.
