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on Central and South America |
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Issue of 2004‒12‒12
twelve papers chosen by |
| By: | Fabio Veras Soares |
| Abstract: | Two facts have characterized the evolution of the informal sector in Brazil during the last two decades: the increase in the proportion of non-registered workers and the diminishing wage gap between non-registered and registered workers. In this paper, we document both the increase of the informal sector and the fall in the wage gap in Brazil. Besides, we investigate which factors were responsible for the fall in the wage gap and how this reduction has contributed to reduce wage inequality between 1981 and 1999. Among our findings, we would highlight: 1) the coincidence between these two movements and the market-oriented reforms of the early 1990's; 2) that the fall in the formal/informal wage gap has substantially contributed to the decrease in wage inequality. After education, the fall in the wage premium due to the possession of a work-card was the main responsible for bringing down wage inequality. Why and how it happened is an open debate. We speculate that the trade liberalization process of the early 1990's and the increasing indexation of informal sector wages to the minimum wage may be behind these phenomena. |
| JEL: | J21 J42 J31 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:142&r=lam |
| By: | Fábio Augusto Reis Gomes; Lourenço Senne Paz |
| Abstract: | In this paper an exploratory research of the determinants of criminal victimization in São Paulo state is conducted using the life-style and opportunity models with Seade's 1998 Pesquisa de Condição de Vida (Life Condition Survey). São Paulo is the most populous Brazilian state with 37 million inhabitants, responding for more than one third of the Brazilian GDP. Our results indicate that the life-style and opportunity models had a good fitting to the data. As expected, the likelihood of being a burglary/larceny victim is increasing in income and if the person is male, and it decreases if the person is married and has few years of schooling. In relation to assault, the victimization likelihood increases considerably if the person is asian, single or divorced, and foreigner, on the other hand, it is decreasing in income and years of schooling, and it is smaller for black or multi-racial background people. |
| JEL: | K40 O17 K42 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:147&r=lam |
| By: | Maria Bernadete Sarmiento Gutierrez; Mario Jorge Cardoso de Mendonça; Adolfo Sachsida; Paulo Roberto Amorim Loureiro |
| Abstract: | The objective of this study is to shed light on the determinants of criminality in Brazil. In order to undertake it we performed an econometric model based in panel data analysis for Brazilian states: Among the major conclusions we have an important result that income inequality plays an important role in criminality. Results also showed that unemployment and urbanization are positively related to crime factors. Based in panel data GMM methodology we found the existence of "inertial effect" on criminality. Panel data GMM estimator was also used to control the existence of endogeneity related to the variable public security. In this case, the results showed that public security spending is effective to diminishes criminality. Contrary to the common wisdom, we cannot found evidence that poverty increases violent crime. Finally considering the results from the Granger causality tests, it was possible to show that inequality causes crime in fact and not the contrary, what supports that the income inequality in an inequivocous determinant of criminality. |
| JEL: | K42 Z13 C23 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:149&r=lam |
| By: | Sara Lemos |
| Abstract: | There is very limited evidence on the e.ects of the minimum wage in developing countries, and none whatsoever on the e.ects of the minimum wage on the public sector. Most of the evidence available uses (US) private sector data. However, evidence regarding the private sector need not carry over to the public sector. This paper estimates minimum wage e.ects across sectors using an under-explored monthly Brazilian household survey from 1982 to 2000. The minimum wage was found to compress the wage distribution of both sectors. However, consistent with a stronger compression e.ect, more adverse long run employment e.ects are observed in the private sector. |
| JEL: | J38 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:155&r=lam |
| By: | Hildo Meirelles de Souza Filho; Miguel Rocha de Sousa; Antônio Márcio Buainain; José Maria da Silveira; Marcelo Marques Magalhães |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the "Cédula da Terra" Pilot Project, a land reform project whose conception, mechanisms and operational structure is different from traditional agrarian reform based on expropriation. The land distributed by the project, is first acquired by the agricultural producers associations, and a given set of incentives is established to obtain a better efficiency use of resources. The main objective of this article is to characterize the sources of technical and allocative inefficiency from a cross section of 309 beneficiaries from five states in NE Brazil. We estimated a potential production frontier following the methodology of BATTESE and COELLI (1995), using the software FRONTIER 4.1. (Tim COELLI, 1996). The main conclusion is that technical assistance, human capital (years of schooling) and better access to credit reduce inefficiency, or thus increase technical and allocative efficiency of the beneficiaries. |
| JEL: | Q15 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:109&r=lam |
| By: | Hoffmann, A.O.I.; Teerling, M.L. (Groningen University) |
| Abstract: | We are all influenced by the people whom surround us, i.e. our social network. So actually, to what extent do these social networks influence a consumers shopping behavior? Moreover are there differences in the strength of influence and to what level of consumers values does the influence of a social network stretch? We study the influence of two concepts of the social network, namely network expectations and the importance of so called hubs on the consumer value attitude system and store loyalty. The results show stronger global and domain specific values for hubs as well as a strong influence of the network expectations on the evaluation of store attributes as well as on store loyalty. |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:rugsom:04b17&r=lam |
| By: | Yury Andrienko |
| Abstract: | Is development criminogenic? Presented model of criminal behavior in the economy with heterogeneous agents shows, that economic development (wealth increase) is accompanied with crime growth, whereas reduction in inequity (inequality in distribution of wealth) and higher human development (rise of honesty, measured by the level of education) lead to lower crime rate. These hypotheses will be tested on data from international crime victim surveys. |
| JEL: | K14 K42 |
| Date: | 2003–07–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eer:wpalle:01-214e&r=lam |
| By: | Joaquim J. M. Guilhoto |
| Abstract: | Following Furtuoso and Guilhoto (2003) the GDP of the Brazilian Agribusiness is estimated to be around 27% of the Brazilian GDP in 2000, and the latest numbers show that it could be reaching 30% of the Brazilian GDP in 2003. Despite its importance for the Brazilian economy as a whole, the size of the Brazilian territory and the regional differences draws attention for the fact that the importance of the agribusiness is not uniform over the Brazilian regions, and if the agribusiness is also divided into its four components, i.e., a) inputs to agriculture; b) agriculture; c) agriculture based industry; and d) final distribution, the differences are even bigger. In this paper it is made a study of the importance of the agribusiness for the 27 states of the Brazilian economy, taking into consideration its four components. The analysis is conduct for the year of 1999 using an interregional input-output system constructed for the Brazilian economy by Guilhoto et al. (2004). |
| JEL: | R15 O13 Q10 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:119&r=lam |
| By: | Maria Tannuri-Pianto; Donald Pianto; Omar Arias |
| Abstract: | This paper studies rural-urban migration in Bolivia. Domestic migration usually works as an equalization mechanism, in which regions with fewer economic opportunities send migrants to more dynamic regions. We model the migration decision and take into account the possibility of self-selection for computing the returns to migration. We present selectivity corrected quantile regression models for earnings of both migrants and non-migrants in urban and metropolitan areas. We find that migrants receive a premium at low and median quantiles of the urban/metro conditional earnings distribution. This premium is somewhat diminished by a negative selectivity correction for migrants with lower probabilities of migration. |
| JEL: | R23 C14 J24 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:120&r=lam |
| By: | Eduardo Amaral Haddad; Fernando Salgueiro Perobelli |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we focus on the regional (intra-national) impacts of barriers to trade, in the form of tariffs, in a national economy. More specifically, we are concerned with the spatial impediments for the internal transmission of the potential benefits of trade liberalization, in the form of high transportation costs that the more remote regions face. A cost-competitiveness approach, base don relative changes in the sectoral and regional cost and demand structures, is adopted to isolate the likely spatial effects of further tariff reductions in Brazil. It tackles the three basis for the analytical framework proposed in the literature: comparative advantage is grasped through the use of differential regional production technologies; geographical advantage is verified through the explicit modeling of the transportation services and the costs of moving products based on origin-destination pairs, as well as increasing returns associated to agglomeration economies; and cumulative causation appears through the operation of internal and external multipliers and interregional spillover effects in comparative-static experiments, such as those proposed here. |
| JEL: | R13 F17 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:131&r=lam |
| By: | Francesco Giavazzi; Guido Tabellini |
| Date: | 2004–12–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levrem:122247000000000724&r=lam |
| By: | André Portela Souza; Hélio Zylberstajn; Luís Eduardo Afonso; Priscilla Matias Flori |
| Abstract: | This article focuses on the reform of Social Security in Brazil, initiated in 2003. We estimate the fiscal impact of the original government proposal, as well as of the proposal approved at the House of Representatives, and the final format approved at the Senate. We also estimated both, the balancing contribution rate and the effective contribution rate, in the three phases of the reforming process. Results indicate that although the final impact was considerably reduced from the initial project, a great deal of progress has been made towards both, the reduction of annual Social Security deficit and its transformation into a more equitable system. |
| JEL: | H55 |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2004:138&r=lam |