15,158 research outputs found
Policy strategies for an emergent technology; lessons from the analysis of EV-policy in 8 North-European countries
No full textThis paper presents data from a comparative study of EV-policies in 8 different North-European countries, that maps out all of the policies of these countries (and a range of regions and cities) that target passenger vehicles (PHEV and BEV), chargers (home, private, public; level 1-3), and policies that target the emobility eco-system or supporting network, in time-period 2012-2014. The main findings are that 1) there is wide variance of policies put out by the different countries, 2) these policies are hardly part of a coherent policy-strategy, and 3) mainly address the introduction of e-mobility as an issue of "piling up" enough incentives to overcome early market problems (e.g. high costs, reticent customers, slow adaptation of regulation).
Most countries we studied were able to meet short-term policy-ambitions, and some have even surpassed those ambitions; Netherlands and Norway for instance are ahead of their targets, both in numbers of vehicles and chargers. However, if we compare the currently applied policies to the medium- and longer term ambitions, these policies are hardly viable. Therefore, argue for alternative policy strategies that do not "pile up" incentives, but look at "mixes" of policies that instigate a self-reinforcing loop in the adoption to EV's
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
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
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
First isolation of enterovirus 71 (EV-71) from Northern Brazil
No full textEnterovirus 71 (EV-71) has been associated to cases of neurological disease in many countries including Brazil. This virus has now been reported from three of the five Brazilian regions. Our study relates the findings concerning to the first isolate of this virus in Northern region of Brazil. A 15-month old female patient, from the rural zone of the municipality of Santana do Araguaia in southern Pará state was admitted at the hospital with acute, flaccid, asymmetric and ascending motor deficiency, located in the right lower limb. Stools samples from this child were inoculated in RD cells and was isolated an EV-71. We plan to sequence our strain and compare it to other isolates in Brazil. Differences at the molecular level can explain why EV-71 strains circulating in other continents, such as Asia, appear to be more virulent
First isolation of enterovirus 71 (EV-71) from Northern Brazil
No full textEnterovirus 71 (EV-71) has been associated to cases of neurological disease in many countries including Brazil. This virus has now been reported from three of the five Brazilian regions. Our study relates the findings concerning to the first isolate of this virus in Northern region of Brazil. A 15-month old female patient, from the rural zone of the municipality of Santana do Araguaia in southern Pará state was admitted at the hospital with acute, flaccid, asymmetric and ascending motor deficiency, located in the right lower limb. Stools samples from this child were inoculated in RD cells and was isolated an EV-71. We plan to sequence our strain and compare it to other isolates in Brazil. Differences at the molecular level can explain why EV-71 strains circulating in other continents, such as Asia, appear to be more virulent
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
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
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