| By: | Marcello M. Estevão Irineu E. Carvalho Filho |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc: |
Even though institutions are created to protect workers, they may interfere with labor market functioning, raise unemployment, and end up being circumvented by informal contracts. This paper uses Brazilian microeconomic data to show that the institutional changes introduced by the 1988 Constitution lowered the sensitivity of real wages to changes in labor market slack and could have contributed to the ensuing higher rates of unemployment in the country. Moreover, the paper shows that states that faced higher increases in informality (i.e., illegal work contracts) following the introduction of the new Constitution tended to have smaller drops in wage responsiveness to macroeconomic conditions, thus suggesting that informality serves as a escape valve to an over-regulated environment. | |
| Keywords: | Brazil , Economic models , Labor markets , Unemployment , Wages |
| By: | Azzoni, Carlos Roberto Guilhoto, Joaquim José mantins Haddad, Eduardo Menezes, Tatiane Silveira, Fernando Hasegawa, Marcos |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc: |
The objective of the paper is to provide an estimative of the impacts that changes in international prices of agricultural commodities will have on income distribution and poverty in Brazil. To do so, a Social Accounting Matrix is constructed and applied, using a Leontief- Miyazawa type model framework. The SAM is defined for 40 products, being 17 raw agricultural products, 15 agricultural processed products, 3 industrial agricultural inputs, 2 other industrial products, trade, transport, and services. Households are allocated to 10 groups, being 6 agricultural (4 types of family farmers, commercial farmers, and agricultural labor), and 4 urban (income quartiles). Demand elasticities (price and income) for the products defined in the SAM are considered, as well as limitations on the supply of agricultural inputs. The knowledge of the possible impacts of changes in international commodity prices on income distribution and poverty is very important for policy design within developing countries. Given the estimated impacts on different groups of producers, different sorts of cushioning policies can be designed. | |
| Keywords: | Commodity Price; Brazil |
| JEL: | D57 |
| By: | Sebastián Galiani (Washington University in Saint Louis) Leonardo Gasparini (CEDLAS - UNLP) |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc: |
El objetivo de este trabajo es reseñar brevemente los métodos tradicionales de evaluación del impacto distributivo de las políticas públicas y discutir algunos de los avances más relevantes en los últimos veinte años. El trabajo se concentra en la evaluación de programas sociales, dejando de lado otras intervenciones públicas y su financiamiento. El trabajo resume los progresos a nivel internacional con algunas referencias a la experiencia argentina. | |
| By: | Crespi, Gustavo (Competitiveness and Innovation Division, Institutions for Development Department, Inter-American Development Bank) Zuniga, Pluvia (UNU-MERIT/MGSoG, University of Maastricht) |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc: |
This study examines the impact of innovation strategies on employment growth in four Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay) using micro-data for manufacturing firms from innovation surveys. Building on the model proposed by Harrison et al. (2008), we relate employment to three innovation strategies: make only (R&D), buy only (external R&D, licensing of patents and know-how, technical assistance, and other external innovation activities) and make and buy (mixed strategy). Firms that conduct in-house innovation activities ("make only") have the greatest impact on employment; the "make and buy" strategy comes in second. Similar results are found for small firms. These results highlight the importance of fostering in-house technological efforts not only for innovation per se, but also to promote growth in firm employment. The impact of "make only" strategies is greater in high-tech industries, whereas "make only" and "make and buy" have a similar impact on employment in low-tech industries. Finally, the study provides evidence of the mechanisms through which innovation strategies affect employment. The findings show that innovation strategies enhance technological innovation, but their impact differs between product and process innovation. Product innovation is mainly motivated by in-house technology investments, followed by mixed strategies, whereas process innovation is basically driven by "buy" strategies. | |
| Keywords: | innovation, employment, external R&D, Latin America, innovation surveys |
| JEL: | O12 |
| By: | Loayza, Norman (World Bank) Rigolini, Jamele (World Bank) Llorente, Gonzalo (World Bank) |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc: |
| We revisit the link between poverty, the middle class and institutional outcomes using a newly developed cross-country panel dataset containing detailed information on the distribution of income and expenditures. When the size of the middle class increases (measured as the proportion of people with income above 10 US Dollars a day in PPP terms), social policy on health and education becomes more active and the quality of governance regarding democratic participation and official corruption improves. This does not occur at the expense of economic freedom, as an expansion of the middle class also implies more market-oriented economic policy on trade and finance. The impact of a larger middle class appears to be more robust than those of lower poverty, lower inequality, or higher GDP per capita. | |
| Keywords: | poverty, middle class, income, institutions, development |
| JEL: | D3 |
| By: | Acevedo, Carlos Cabrera, Maynor |
URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc: |
This paper reviews the pattern of poverty rates and income inequality in El Salvador since the 1990s. It discusses some of the likely factors that explain the reduction in income inequality that has taken place in the country in the last decade, which paradoxically has coincided with the long period of economic stagnation that has followed dollarization since 2001. After examination of the available evidence, we conclude that this trend has been mainly due to the equalizing effect of migration and remittances (that is, a .private safety net. built around solidarity within families) rather than the distributive effect of public social expenditure or other public policies. | |
| Keywords: | El Salvador; remittances; migration; inequality; poverty; labour market |
