81,586 research outputs found
Trade Liberalization, Employment Flows and Wage Inequality in Brazil
No full textUsing nationally representative, economy-wide data, this paper investigates the relative importance of trade-mandated effects on industry wage premiums; industry and economy-wide skill premiums; and employment flows in accounting for changes in the wage distribution in Brazil during the 1988-95 trade liberalization. Unlike in other Latin American countries, trade liberalization appears to have made a significant contribution towards a reduction in wage inequality. These effects have not occurred through changes in industry-specific (wage or skill) premiums. Instead, they appear to have been channelled through substantial employment flows across sectors and formality categories. Changes in the economy-wide skill premium are also important.trade liberalization, inequality, employment flows, Brazil
Planning in Brazil, India and Germany
No full textPlanning is a fundamental cognitive ability that helps in organizing and structuring events unfolding in a person\u27s daily life. Two studies are presented that analyze planning behavior in different cultures: Brazil, India, and Germany. The first is a cross-cultural psychological study in which students develop plans for uncertain problem scenarios. The second study follows a cultural psychological tradition. Workers from different domains are interviewed about their life problems and plans. The strengths and the weaknesses of both approaches become obvious in the description and discussion of these two studies. The cross-cultural study sheds light on cross-cultural similarities and differences in planning in Brazil, India, and Germany. The cultural psychological approach yields data regarding a theoretical model on the specific cultural influences on planning
A Comparative Analysis of the Equity Outcomes in Three Sugarcane–Ethanol Systems
No full textThis article identifies equity outcomes associated with three biofuel systems in Brazil, Ethiopia, and Guatemala. Acknowledging that winners and losers are socially and politically generated, the article identifies some of the factors behind the distribution of winners and losers along different stages of three sugarcane–ethanol supply chains. Analyzing the outcomes for equity within each case study reveals an uneven distribution that, we argue, is related to the procedure and structure of the given sugarcane–ethanol system, and the recognition of the impacts on different actors within those structures. Increasing equity in sugarcane–ethanol systems will require greater openness in decision-making processes, in order that multiple voices are taken into account in the promotion, production, and consumption of biofuels—particularly those of smaller and less powerful actors
The inflation - stabilization cycles in Argentina and Brazil
No full textThe Austral plan in Argentina and the Cruzado plan in Brazil were major stabilization attempts with lasting effects on the inflation process in both countries. The purpose of this paper is to understand the reasons that led to the large instability in inflation in both countries, and to explain why neither country succeeded in sustaining a high, but stable rate of inflation. This instability was not accompanied by a noticeable increase in the average rate of inflation. In Argentina inflation was in fact lower on average during the first three years after the Austral plan than in the previous three years, while in Brazil the increase in the average rate of inflation after the Cruzado plan was not dramatic. The paper presents the view that the type of instability that emerged following the failure of the heterodox shocks was a consequence of the large reliance on income policies for stopping inflation in the Austral and Cruzado plans and in the follow-up programs. It was the repeated use of controls accompanied by expectations and anticipations about government actions by firms and works that introduced the observed instability during this period. The paper presents a summary of the process of inflation and gives an in-depth analysis of the inflation - stabilization cycles. It concludes with thoughts about the sustainability of the regime, and the implications of these developments for the design of stabilization programmes in both countries.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Inflation,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance
Who would vote for inflation in Brazil? : an integrated framework approach to inflation and income distribution
No full textMost studies of how inflation affects income distribution focus only on wages or the inflation tax. The authors argue that this approach can be misleading as it ignores important channels through which inflation affects income distribution. The authors present an integrated framework that combines interest bearing assets with labor income and cash holdings. This allows them to describe clearly the conditions under which inflation will create gainers and losers. They apply the model to Brazil, which is a prime candidate for this exercise because its economy combines skewed income distribution and high inflation. They show that in Brazil inflation helped worsen income distribution in the 1980s. Their major findings follow. In 1980-1989, the inflation induced income loss for the lowest quintile in Brazil was an estimated 19 percent a year, of which 16 percent is attributable to the erosion of real wages and the rest to the inflation tax. During the same period, Brazil's middle class which lost close to 30 percent of its annual income, was devastated because of its limited access to indexed assets. But the richest quintile managed to insulate itself from inflation by taking advantage of high real interest on demand deposits - without losing from reduced labor income. Had real assets and subsidized credits been considered in the analysis, the regressive effects on inflation would probably have been worse, say the authors. This raises aquestion: Do these findings about the distributional effects of inflation help explain Brazil's delays in adopting a stabilization program?Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Conditions and Volatility,Inequality,Banks&Banking Reform
Vocational secondary schooling, occupational choice, and earnings in Brazil
No full textEmpirical studies on the efficacy of vocational education, mainly in developing countries - a literature now comprising dozens of evaluation studies - have been fairly unanimous in recording a negative verdict on the costs and benefits of vocational secondary education, particularly compared with traditional academic school. The authors, in this study set in Brazil, reach a different conclusion. Like a number of recent evaluation studies (for Hong Kong, Israel, and the United States), this one challenges the established orthodoxy by reporting findings far more supportive of vocational schooling. Unlike traditional approaches, it focuses on the relationship between field of vocational study and subsequent occupation. The authors report that students who complete vocational school and work in related fields have significant earnings advantages over students who do not work in fields related to what they studied and over students who complete academic school.Education Reform and Management,Primary Education,Gender and Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Teaching and Learning
Managing pollution control in Brazil : the potential use of taxes and fines by federal and state governments
No full textThe authors make a case for federal monitoring of state environmental agencies'(SEPAs') performance because of the tradeoff for the states between the need to raise revenue from taxes on local output and the need to limit pollution. They also show that fines and taxes assigned respectively to the federal and state governments can improve firms'compliance and SEPA's performance, and hence environmental quality, without damaging state revenue, and perhaps even improving it. For their analysis, the authors rely on numerical policy simulations based on an analytical framework designed as a multilevel Stackelberg game. This framework reproduces the hierarchical structure of pollution control policies in Brazil, where the federal environmental protection agency relies on SEPAs to ensure that federally defined minimum ambient standards are met locally. The numerical simulations are based on a case study of the food, and the printing and publishing industries.Urban Services to the Poor,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Pollution Management&Control,Health Monitoring&Evaluation
Sectoral allocation by gender of Latin American workers over the liberalization period of the 1990s
No full textThe recent restructuring of Latin American economies has renewed interest in the effects of trade liberalization, on labor markets, and on the gender division of labor. The author does not attempt to establish casuality between economic reforms, and the types of jobs that men and women hold. Instead, she provides a detailed description of the trends in male, and female formal, and informal sector participation during the economic reform period in Argentina, Brazil, and Costa Rica. The author first compares the gender composition of the formal, informal wage, and self-employment sectors in a year before reforms (1988 for Argentina, 1989 for Brazil, and Costa Rica), and a year after reforms implementation (1997 for Argentina, 1995 for Brazil and Costa Rica). Although women continued to be more likely than men to work in the informal wage sector, there is no trend of"masculinization"or"feminization"of the informal sector, or any other. Instead, in Argentina men have overtaken women as the most prevalent workers in the informal wage sector, while in Brazil, the opposite has occurred (as men move into self-employment). In Costa Rica there have been no statistical, observable changes. The author then considers the distribution across sectors within each gender group, to identify whether men, and women are more likely to select different sectors in the post-reform period relative to the pre-reform period. Among both men, and women in all three countries (except Brazilian men), workers have become more likely to hold informal wage jobs, and less likely to hold formal sector jobs. Trends in human capital accumulation explain these changes for both men, and women, while changes in gender roles, primarily in homecare and marriage, do not seem to have an effect.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Policies,Population&Development,Public Health Promotion,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Population&Development,Banks&Banking Reform,Work&Working Conditions
The Deepening China Brazil Economic Relationship
No full textWe document key features of the deepening economic relationship between Brazil and China. This is evident from sharply increased bilateral trade and foreign direct investment flows and also from enhanced cohesion of negotiating positions in international fora. Data presented show bilateral trade between Brazil and China surging after 2001 and China is now Brazil’s largest export market while Brazil’s export share to the US has halved. The number of bilateral cooperation agreements between the two countries has also significantly increased in recent years. Projections of future trade flows using current growth rates suggest that China will become the dominant trade partner for Brazil surprisingly soon.economic relationship, trade, policy, China, Brazil, deepening
Informal gold mining and mercury pollution in Brazil
No full textThe Amazon region has been responsible for a major share of Brazilian gold production in recent years. The region has witnessed a sizable gold rush comparable only to the California gold rush last century. The gold rush has spawned a powerful informal mining sector and has attracted many people - some who have come to the region in search of wealth and some who were already there but were displaced from other, unsuccessful economicactivities. What these people encounter at the mining sites are dreadful living and working conditions. Gold mining also causes substantial environmental problems, which may persist whether gold deposits do or not. The author discusses the environmental effects of gold mining in the region, focusing on mercury pollution. Mercury, an important input in gold extraction, is being discharged into the atmosphere and the rivers at alarming rates. The environmental costs of the present extraction, is being discharged into the atmosphere and the rivers at alarming rates. The environmental costs of the present extraction technology will be faced primarily by future generations, because of natural chemical processes. Although removing the mercury already discharged from the Amazonian environment may be an enormous task, at least future discharges should be curtailed through the use of appropriate technology, environmental education, and a combination of command and control measures and market-based incentives. The author describes the gold extraction process and the extent of mercury use and contamination. He analyzes key elements of the environmental problem, especially the informal miner and the fish economy. Finally, he suggests a combination of command and control regulations and market-based incentives adapted to the informal gold mining economic environment. He emphasizes the need for an education campaign about the perils of using mercury and the availability of more appropriate, and inexpensive, alternative extraction technologies.Mining&Extractive Industry (Non-Energy),Montreal Protocol,Water and Industry,Coastal and Marine Resources,Primary Metals
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