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The article looks at how the balance of payment methods used in Brazil and Chile determines how the money supply is managed by the government, particularly what impact payment imbalances have on the supply. The economies of less developed countries (LDC's) such as those in South America have an interest inelastic money demand, meaning that alterations to economic policy often causes fluctuations in the interest rate. Many mathematical equations are used to examine the impact of international finance on the money supply and factors like interest rate, gross national product (GNP), exports, and balance of trade.

We develop an equilibrium wage-posting model with heterogeneous firms that decide to locate in the formal or the informal sector and workers who search randomly on and off the job. We estimate the model on Brazilian labor force survey data. In equilibrium, firms of equal productivity locate in different sectors, a fact observed in the data. Wages are characterized by compensating differentials. We show that tightening enforcement does not increase unemployment and increases wages, total output, and welfare by enabling better allocation of workers to higher productivity jobs and improving competition in the formal labor market. (JEL E26, J24, J31, J46, O15, O17) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the global financial crisis most emerging market and developing countries experienced a surge in capital inflows that accentuated financial fragility in those countries. Unlike similar surges in the 1990s and in the five years leading to the global financial crisis in 2008, this time many emerging market and developing countries re-regulated cross-border financial flows. According to the literature such acts are seen as quite difficult, given the pervasiveness of the ‘capital mobility hypothesis’ which renders that the structural power of global financial markets is too much of a match for states, especially those in emerging markets. The paper traces how Brazil and South Korea were able to countervail the structural power of global capital markets and put in place regulations on cross-border finance in the wake of the crisis. The paper also outlines the contours an inductive theory regarding the conditions under which emerging market and developing nations may deviate from the ‘capital mobility hypotheses’ and similar literatures. This concept is referred to as ‘countervailing monetary power’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the experience of metropolitan Rio de Janeiro, this article contributes to the broader debate on development regimes, rescaling and state spatial restructuring in Brazil, and its specificities in relation to the international discussion on the transformations in Atlantic Fordism. I argue that the transition from a (peripheral) development state to a competitive and rescaled regime has been accompanied by important continuities. Legitimized through discourses around development poles and trickle-down effects, the national-developmental regime has systematically promoted some spaces as opposed to others, without much emphasis on the social and environmental dimensions of spatial policies. The emerging competitive state spatial regime, whether in its neoliberalized, or its more recent 'rolled-out' national-developmental version, is merely expected to aggravate the historical socio-environmental contradictions in the production of space. Moreover, scale has proven contested and strategic-relational, both molding and being influenced by actors that seek to use scalar politics to reach their interests. My analysis suggests that, within this scenario, neither economic growth, nor regulatory and institutional strengthening, nor financial resources are likely to produce structural transformation in the inherited spaces of Greater Rio de Janeiro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large emerging economies, typically Brazil, India, China and South Africa (BICS), demonstrate a strong upward trend in many aspects of their macroeconomic performance in recent decades. This surge is attributed to 'size effects' whereby economies of scale and scope, and agglomeration impact, create productivity improvements. This paper concentrates on both conceptual and empirical studies about the most important contributions from real and financial sectors towards economic growth in large emerging economies. In particular, the transmission channels from finance to growth are discussed in this paper, to show how size effects can affect these transmission mechanisms from finance to development. The econometric estimations use a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model for four specific large emerging economies - BICS - and analyse dynamic shocks from real sectors and financial sectors, together with size-effect variables: education investment, government spending and military expenditures. We conclude that real shocks have much higher impact effects on output and growth compared to financial shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses export productivity and trade specialisation in China, Brazil, India and South Africa. The investigation calculates a time-varying export productivity measure using highly disaggregated product categories. The modelling shows that export productivity is determined by real income and human capital endowments. But the empirical analysis also reveals significant differences in export productivity and specialisation for countries with comparable per capita income levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, marketisation-focused public policies have significantly transformed higher education systems worldwide. In developing countries that do not have public universities, there has been a reduction of public financing and the expansion of private institutions. In Brazil, one of the main developing countries in the world context, such changes caused a rapid quantitative expansion in the number of students registered. However, the impact of such policies on the quality of the higher education system in the country is still unknown. There are questions about the real quality of higher education and about the effects of the markets in the improvement of the system quality. This paper describes a study of the development of the quality in the Brazilian higher education system, from 1994 to 2003, which was elaborated from a conceptual model of quality and from an international performance-indicator system. The results of this study indicate that marketisation policies in developing countries did not promote an improvement of the quality or the maximisation of the social benefits of higher education. In the period studied, no clear evidence of improvement in relevance, diversity, equity and effectiveness were found in the Brazilian higher education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: “Populism” and expanded democratic participation often have been painted as the enemy of sane macroeconomics. Yet Brazil’s experience suggests possibly benign implications of stable mass democracy for national economic management in developing countries. Prior to 1930, agrarian elites ruled Brazil. As political participation gradually expanded, policymakers elaborated the regulatory framework of import-substituting industrialization (ISI). ISI not only generated strong growth but also chronically high and volatile inflation, with costs falling most heavily on the disenfranchised a poor majority. The advent of mass democracy in the mid-1980s gave the poor a political voice for the first time, and plausibly was the crucial cause for the demise of hyperinflation a decade later. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Discusses the labor market impact of trade liberalization in Brazil. Trade liberalization policy from 1992; Theoretical significance of the findings about the impact of trade liberalization on inequality in a developing country; Characteristics of employment in Brazil; Demand for college skills relative to elementary school skills.

Changing competitive conditions in Brazilian industry are leading companies to seek Japanese management techniques as a means of rapidly raising productivity and quality. Macroeconomic instability, low levels of educational achievement and poor labour relations would seem to present barriers to the use of these techniques. Case studies of firms in the motor components industry show that firms in Brazil can make radical changes to their production systems, overcome educational deficiencies and also secure reverse past employment relations practices in order to obtain some degree of acceptance of change by labour. However, there are reasons for supposing that these successes may be difficult to sustain in a difficult and turbulent macroeconomic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]