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This paper explores the variation in intergenerational educational mobility across the Brazilian states based on univariate econometric techniques. The analysis of the national household survey (PNAD‐2014) confirms a strong variation in mobility among the 27 federative units in Brazil and demonstrates a significant correlation between mobility and income inequality. In this sense, this work presents empirical evidence for the existence of the "Great Gatsby curve" within a single country: states with greater income disparities present higher levels of persistence in educational levels across generations. Finally, the paper investigates one specific mechanism behind this correlation: whether higher income inequality might lead to lower investment in human capital among children from socially vulnerable households. The paper delivers robust and compelling results showing that children born into families where the parents have not completed primary education have a statistically significant reduction in their chance of completing the educational system if they live in states with a higher level of income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil has faced and continues to struggle with difficult economic challenges, including achieving noninflationary economic growth and a manageable external deficit. This paper presents the results of the estimation of an aggregate translog cost function with inputs of domestic capital and labor and imports and outputs of consumption and investment goods. The resulting calculated elasticities give insights into the relationships among the inputs, as well as the possible impacts of further reducing international trade barriers. The findings suggest that all of the inputs are substitutes for one another and that an increase in imports may have at least short‐run negative effects on the demand for domestic capital and labor. However, imports appear to be particularly important in the production of investment goods, so an increase in imports may result in a more than proportionate increase in the output of those products and enhance the long‐term growth of the economy. The responses to current challenges facing Brazil will affect its future economic growth as well as have a broader impact on the international scene. The results described here may help to inform policy makers as they address these issues, particularly with respect to international trade policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the impact of race‐based affirmative action for higher education in Brazil, through the effects of applying under a quota versus the open system for Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, on academic performance, time, and delay in completion. The data used were obtained by the survey of the National Student Performance Examination (Enade) from 2016 to 2018. Through the propensity score matching methodologies, entropy balancing, empirical quantile regression strategy, and Lewbel method, a small statistically significant negative impact on students' performance was observed. Significant effects on time and delay in completion were not found in most of the estimators used. We also observed that older students and students who are male, lack, or Indigenous are more likely to choose to enter via racial quotas, while students who live with their parents or spouse and students who have some source of income are less likely to participate in the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Brazil plays a very peculiar role in global value chains (GVC): the country imports high technological goods in general while going through early deindustrialization and relying mainly on basic goods for its exports. Even after developing a broad, diversified industrial framework and becoming one of the countries that has received more foreign direct investments since the 1990s, Brazil has been struggling to occupy a more technologically oriented place in GVCs. This paper examines the conditionings of this pattern of insertion by characterizing the country's quantitative and qualitative model of integration into GVCs and by analyzing the elements that can explain this performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the influence of macroeconomic factors on the introduction of antidumping (AD) cases in Brazil and in Argentina. Since this type of research does not have large samples, the relevant variables were selected via Sala‐i‐Martin's (1997) test. The results, estimated using Poisson models, revealed that Brazil and Argentina are influenced by macroeconomic factors. However, the traditional (aggregated) models tend to minimize this influence on Brazil and overestimate it on Argentina. We also found that domestic and foreign income growth, exchange rate devaluation, and a reduction in domestic prices could reduce the number of AD cases in both countries. Therefore, there is evidence that these countries are using the AD law as a political tool, shifting it from its main objective of avoiding unfair trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the impact of Brazil's National Program to Strengthen Family Farming (PRONAF) on the time allocation of household members. We use data from the 2014 Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, and we apply propensity score methods to complex surveys recently recommended in the literature. We find that PRONAF helps to increase focus on agricultural activities, but it also stimulates female partners to engage in unpaid work. The results show significant effects of PRONAF on child labor and on the gender‐specific division of labor within households, although it does not have the usual adverse effects of rural credit programs on school attendance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emerging market crises of the past decade have led some observers to question the wisdom of a completely open capital account. But even if capital controls are desirable, empirical evidence is needed to demonstrate when and under what circumstances restrictions are effective. This paper investigates this issue for Brazil. Much analysis of policy effectiveness has been conducted with vector autoregressions. The validity of policy inference based on this technique has been cast into doubt, so this paper employs a more “narrative” method, modeling flows to Brazil as ARMAX processes. This approach yields the interesting result that controls can be effective when the reaction of financial market participants to restrictions is taken into account, and derivatives and debt market activities curtailed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper investigates the impacts of the Workers’ Party (WP) in government on the homicide rate in Brazil from panel data for the Brazilian states between 1980 and 2011 using the system of generalized method of moments. An important explanatory factor in the homicide rate is the association between socioeconomic variables and left political parties in state governments. The results provide empirical evidence that the WP's control of the government increased the homicide rate more than the other political parties. This suggests that increasing the number of years of WP occupation of the presidency leads to a more pronounced increase in the homicide rate, compared with other political parties. Although the observed trend indicates increased rates of homicide, more substantial growth was observed in almost all states under WP rule during the period 2003 to 2011, contributing to a higher overall level of violence in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes how an error in inflation expectations helped maintain high interest rates in the wake of the major stabilization plans launched in Brazil over the past 18 years. Newly implemented low-inflation measures lacked credibility and forced agents to expect a higher inflation rate than the one effectively observed, creating a wedge between ex-post and ex-ante real interest rates. The results also indicate that past failures have helped undermined the credibility of new measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of industrial real wages in Brazil, making use of panel data on 22 industry sectors with monthly observations for the period 1985-93. The main objective is to test whether industrial wages in Brazil respond to sectoral performance. In line with the evidence for other countries, the overall results suggest that sectoral conditions (insider effects) play an important role in real wage determination in Brazil. This is also indicative that the Brazilian wage-setting structure is far from conforming to the traditional textbook description of competitive models and appears rather conducive to rent sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to provide some empirical evidence about black-white differentials in the distribution of income and wellbeing in three different countries: Brazil, the USA and South Africa. In all cases, people of African descent are in a variety of ways socially disadvantaged compared with the relatively more affluent whites. We investigate the extent of these gaps in comparative perspective, and analyze to what degree they are associated with differences in the observed characteristics of races, such as where they live, the types of household they have, or their performance in the labor market. We undertake this analysis with the Oaxaca- Blinder decomposition at the means and with a propensity score approach at the entire distribution. Our results show how the factors underlying the racial divide vary across countries and income quantiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic growth and development literature emphasizes that investment in technology and physical and human capital is essential for achieving higher levels of development. Political and economic institutions are also relevant in this process. With a sample of 5,503 Brazilian municipalities, this study carries out a development accounting exercise and measures the effects of institutional quality on per capita gross domestic product (GDP), physical capital intensity, human capital stock, and productivity. The empirical results indicate that institutional quality affects GDP per capita mainly through human capital accumulation and total factor productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the developing world, services account for a rising share of domestic employment and international trade. Thus, it is important to know whether trade liberalization contributes to labour productivity in services. We explore this question, examining the 1990–2000 Brazilian trade liberalization. We find that growth of imports and exports strengthened labour productivity in services, but the contribution was smaller in subsectors with more college graduates, and this negative offset was larger in subsectors that received large foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. Improved access to imported manufactured intermediate inputs raised downstream services' labour productivity and downstream manufacturing firms benefitting from tariff cuts enacted by trade partners generated spillovers that improved the labour productivity of upstream service subsectors. However, FDI inflows and investments in human and physical capital modified these downstream factors. We conclude that the Brazilian trade liberalization strengthened productivity in services, but unequally across subsectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects of fiscal opacity, fiscal impulse, and fiscal credibility on disagreement about economic growth forecasts. Regarding fiscal opacity, as a novelty, we use an indicator that captures the ignorance of financial market experts about the real budget balance condition. Fiscal impulse is represented by two fiscal impulse indicators, while fiscal credibility is represented by two credibility indexes. The findings suggest an increase in fiscal opacity and the adoption of discretionary fiscal policy raise disagreement about economic growth forecasts. The results suggest that fiscal credibility improvements reduce disagreement about economic growth forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using establishment‐level data from Brazil, we estimate the extent to which firm‐ and industry‐level employment and entry decisions respond to changes in the employment decisions of geographically proximate firms and industries. We instrument for employment changes by following Bartik (1991) and Blanchard and Katz (1992). Our analysis suggests the existence of economically and statistically significant effects of municipality‐level shocks in other industries on the employment and entry decisions of firms and industries in the same municipality. Spillovers are heterogeneous across municipalities and vary based on municipality income, distance from regional economic centers, and transport costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing U.S. R&D internationalization has historically been concentrated in developed countries. However, in the past few decades, the internationalization has moved toward less‐developed countries (LDCs), particularly Brazil, China, and India. What location factors are making some LDCs more "inviting" for U.S. R&D offshore? To answer this first question, we constructed a panel data using secondary data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis regarding the R&D investment made by the majority‐owned foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies in 71 countries. We then applied a Heckman two‐step correction for selection bias test. The results highlight some important differences between developed countries' and LDCs' attractiveness. Based on these initial results, we conducted a detailed analysis of the determinants of U.S. R&D investments in Brazil, China, and India, which revealed that China's determinants mostly match those found in more developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America, which is a region known for its high and persistent income inequality levels, experienced a significant decline in income inequality since the second half of the 1990s. Brazil is a particularly interesting case in Latin America. While the country presented notable economic growth and improvements in income distribution in the early 2000s, Brazil continues to experience high levels of income inequality in comparison with other Latin American or advanced economies. This research contributes to the literature by examining the key drivers of income distribution and the degree of persistence of income inequality among Brazilian states. This research also improves upon previous works by using more recent and comprehensive data and addressing concerns regarding heterogeneity and endogeneity by using the system GMM estimation method. Our findings show that income inequality is highly persistent across Brazilian states and that government policies including income transfer programs made important contributions to reduce income inequality in Brazil. This study also shows that the decline in labor income ratios between different ethnic groups and the increase of the share of formal jobs in the labor market contributed to reduce income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We look at two emerging economies, Brazil and China, and propose an evaluation of their recent development in terms of growth performance and the evolution of income inequality. Our analysis, therefore, is related to the literature on their recent vast growth and also to the much debated Kuznets curve and theory. However, we claim that neither the growth nor the Kuznets approach capture recent relevant phenomena characterizing such countries' dynamics: namely, the presence of at least two distinct growth models. Cointegration analysis and empirical evidence seem to corroborate our interpretation. They also offer some further insights. We surmise that while contributing to press for a further re-examination of convergence in the light of the issue of income distribution, such findings have interpretative relevance and policy implications for other less developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the distribution of foreign development assistance depend on the organizational capacity of the recipient organization? I argue that employees at donor agencies seek signals of which recipients will implement aid most effectively, and use these signals to determine the destination of foreign aid on the micro level. Qualitative evidence gathered in the US and Brazil indicates the types of signals donors seek and recipients strive to transmit: signals of a recipient's professionalism, reputation, and sustainability. After developing a signaling game to derive the conditions under which these signals might be credible indicators of implementation effectiveness, I present quantitative evidence of aid recipient organizations in Brazil and score them on the three signals. Statistical tests confirm that organizations with higher levels of these signals are more likely to receive funding, suggesting that donors use these signals to determine the destination of development assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]