What happens when a woman wins an election? Evidence from close races in Brazil

This paper analyzes the effect of the gender of local policymakers on policy outcomes. Analyzing a rich dataset from Brazilian municipalities and using a regression discontinuity design, we find that municipalities ruled by female mayors have better health outcomes, receive more federal discretionary transfers, and have lower corruption. Additionally, male mayors hire more temporary public employees than their female counterparts when they are allowed to run for re-election, and when municipal elections are approaching. These findings suggest that male mayors may promote more political patronage than female mayors and that men and women may respond differently to local election incentives

Tying Your Enemy’s Hands in Close Races: The Politics of Federal Transfers in Brazil

This paper uses a quasi-experimental strategy to disclose utterly political reasons behind the allocation of intergovernmental transfers in a federal state. We apply a regression discontinuity design in close elections to identify the effect of political alignment on federal transfers to municipal governments in Brazil. We find that municipalities where the mayor is affiliated with the coalition of the Brazilian President receive larger (discretionary) infrastructure transfers by about 40% in pre-election years. This effect is mainly driven by the fact that the federal government penalizes municipalities run by mayors from the opposition coalition who won by a narrow margin, thereby tying their hands for the next election.federal transfers, political alignment, regression discontinuity

Institutions, Credit rationing and housing development

One of the basic principles that allow a smooth operation of the markets is the equilibrium between supply and demand. According to this principle, when demand exceeds supply, the price mechanism will try to bring the system back into equilibrium. When this thinking is applied to the housing market, it leads to the conclusion that any inequality in housing supply or demand is transitory. Nonetheless, the fact that a considerable share of the population live in precarious homes for generations seems to speak against the virtues of market mechanisms in the resolution of housing disequilibria. Stiglitz and Weiss (1981) argue that in the face of asymmetric information, under some conditions the equilibrium of the credit market can be marked by rationing. Asymmetric information – working through the effects of adverse selection and of incentive – has impacts on the return function of bank loans, which leads to interest rates used in housing loans to be different from those that balance supply and demand for credit, causing credit rationing. Literature of the New Institutional Economics (NIE) in turn points out the fact that institutions can reduce the degree of uncertainty by lessening the effects of asymmetric information. Regarding the housing market, the degree of property rights, as well as the mortgage institution which acts as a contract enforcement tool, provide the credit market with information on the quality of the borrower and thus broaden the social scope of this market. The purpose of this article is to understand how the equilibrium in the housing market is influenced by credit rationing and to what extend institutional development affects this scarcity and the interest rates of housing loans. The model developed in this article, which combines the tradition of dynamic models of housing investment with the premises of the New Institutional Economics and the considerations of Stiglitz and Weiss (1981) and (1992) on rationing in the credit market, allows us to identify the role of institutions on housing development.Asymmetric information, Rationed credit market, Property rights, Mortgage foreclosure costs, Housing development

Occupazione femminile e flessibilità dei tempi di lavoro: il part-time

Il saggio prende le mosse dalle difficoltà che incontra l’occupazione femminile, specie nella seconda fase della grande crisi, al punto da rappresentare una condizione paradigmatica delle criticità del mercato del lavoro italiano. Ma il lavoro delle donne costituisce, nel contempo, anche una preziosa leva per uscire dalla crisi. Da qui l’attenzione alle misure che possono agevolare l’occupazione femminile a partire, visto il filo conduttore del volume, dalle flessibilità del tempo di lavoro. Fra queste, per numeri e per tradizione, risalta il part-time. Ma tale contratto di lavoro nel nostro Paese per le ragioni indagate stenta ad affermarsi come misura di work-life balance, anche dopo la recente riforma Fornero del mercato del lavoro. Maggiori speranze derivano dalla (nuova) possibilità di utilizzo a tempo parziale dei (vecchi) congedi parental

Out of equilibrium thermodynamics in multi-component exact models

openMany body integrable systems allow the calculation of the equilibrium spectrum through a set of equations called "thermodynamic Bethe ansatz"(TBA). In particular, the macroscopic quantity encoding the informations about the spectrum is the so-called root density. A recent theoretical development is Generalized Hydrodynamics(GHD) which provides exact equations for the time evolution of the root density. The prototypical setup in which these equations are tested is the quantum quench, i.e. a sudden change of some parameter of the Hamiltonian (typically related to the external potential). The goal of the thesis is to develop numerical simulation for the time evolution of single-component and multi-component gases.Many body integrable systems allow the calculation of the equilibrium spectrum through a set of equations called "thermodynamic Bethe ansatz"(TBA). In particular, the macroscopic quantity encoding the informations about the spectrum is the so-called root density. A recent theoretical development is Generalized Hydrodynamics(GHD) which provides exact equations for the time evolution of the root density. The prototypical setup in which these equations are tested is the quantum quench, i.e. a sudden change of some parameter of the Hamiltonian (typically related to the external potential). The goal of the thesis is to develop numerical simulation for the time evolution of single-component and multi-component gases

The Brazilian amazon: A resource curse or renewed colonialism?

The aim of this paper is to highlight the effect of the endowment of resources on development through the analysis of the impact of national strategy, both at a regional and local level. The research focuses on the Legal Amazon†, through the georeferenced analysis of socio-economic data from the last three censuses (1991, 2000 and 2010), in order to demonstrate how the Brazilian national energy strategy is contributing to the perpetuation of the phenomenon of the endowment trap‡ at a regional level. Despite boosting the national growth, the concentration of sector-based projects in resource-abundant areas is unable to eradicate inequalities, which in turn perpetuates the path dependence§

The Political Resource Curse

The paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a version of the career concerns model of political agency with endogenous entry of political candidates. The evidence refers to municipalities in Brazil, where federal transfers to municipal governments change exogenously according to given population thresholds. We exploit a regression discontinuity design to test the implications of the theory and identify the causal effect of larger federal transfers on political corruption and the observed features of political candidates at the municipal level. In accordance with the predictions of the theory, we find that larger transfers increase political corruption and reduce the quality of candidates for mayor.government spending, corruption, political selection

What happens when a woman wins an election? Evidence from close races in Brazil

We analyze close elections between male and female mayoral candidates in Brazilian municipalities to provide novel evidence on the role of women as policymakers. Using an objective measure of corruption based on random government audits, we find that female mayors are less likely to engage in corruption compared to male mayors. We also find that female mayors hire fewer temporary public employees than male mayors during the electoral year and tend to attract less campaign contributions when running for reelection. Moreover, our results show that female mayors have a lower reelection probability than male mayors. We interpret our findings as suggesting that male incumbents are more likely to engage in strategic behavior and this improves their electoral performance. Other explanations receive less support from the data