Exchange Rate Misalignment and Growth: Old and New Econometric Evidence

Several studies have tried to identify the relationship between growth and misaligned or overvalued currencies. Many works (Easterly (2001) and Fajnzylber et alii (2002)), find negative correlations between exchange rate misalignment and growth for a long list of developing countries since the seventies; the more overvalued the currency, the smaller the per capita growth rates. Even after controlling the regressions for several types of variables, the studies cannot reject the statistical significance of overvalued exchange rates in explaining growth. This paper presents new econometric evidence for the exchange rate levels and growth relation based on a panel data study for 58 developing countries from 1960 until 1999 using PPP deviation measures. Our main contribution here is to estimate growth regressions with a real exchange rate index that deals with changes in real GDP per capita levels. We use a new overvaluation index that takes into account variations in real per capita incomes, adjusting, thus, our exchange rate estimates for the so-called Balassa-Samuelson effect. By correcting traditional real exchange rate annual estimates for GDP per capita increases, we intend to control our whole series for appreciations due to productivity increases as many authors do for some specific years.Exchange Rate Levels, Overvaluations, Growth

Policies aimed at encouraging the take-up of green cars may have unexpected results on both emissions and markets.

Road transportation currently contributes to 19 per cent of CO2 emissions in Sweden, a figure that is higher than the EU’s average. From 2007 to 2009, the Swedish government put in place a Green Car Rebate to encourage people to buy lower emission cars. Cristian Huse and Claudio Lucinda assess the effectiveness of the policy, finding that while it did reduce CO2 emission levels, there was also little need to subsidise the purchase of vehicles that can use both petrol and alternative fuels

Externalidades de Rede e Tarifas de Interconexão na Rede Móvel: O Caso Brasileiro

In this paper, we aim to investigate the optimum values for the termination rate on mobile networks in Brazil. In order to do so, initially we provide an overview of the legal framework on the subject since the privatization in the beginning of the 90’s. In the second section, we provide a theoretical background on the subject and on the approaches used for the computing these prices, from the Ramsey pricing with network externalities, as used by Ofcom in the setting of termination charges for the United Kingdom, to the ones which use a framework of imperfect competition in the mobile sector, as presented in Wright (2000). The third section carries out a simulation of these approaches for parameter values of the Brazilian case. The fourth section concludes and posits some policy conclusions.Telecomunicações, Preços de Ramsey, Externalidades de Rede

The Market Impact and the Cost of Environmental Policy: Evidence from the Swedish Green Car Rebate

We quantify the effects of the Swedish GCR, a program to reduce oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions in the automobile industry. We find the GCR to increase the market shares of `green cars' and its cost to be $109/tonCO2 saved, thus 5 times the price of an emission permit. Since the main green cars in Sweden are FFVs (flexible-fuel vehicles), which can switch between petrol (gasoline) and ethanol, we also account for fuel choice, which increases the cost of the program. Finally, we show that consumers would have purchased FFVs regardless of the rebate provided by the GCR

Cálculo de sobrepreço em cartéis: Teoria e prática

O sucesso na aplicação da lei de defesa da concorrência no que diz respeito à punição de cartéis depende de procedimentos sólidos de investigação e punição eficaz. No entanto, a legislação existente apenas fornece direção para o cálculo das multas de cartel com base na receita de vendas, ainda que tais multas não possam ser inferiores ao ganho de cartel. Usando dados de um caso real, temos dois objetivos no presente artigo: (i) revisar os desafios associados com o cálculo de estimativas de sobrepreço de cartel e (ii) investigar se as multas aplicadas à firma estavam de acordo com o valor do sobrepreço de cartel. Utilizamos três metodologias para estimar estes sobrepreços. Os resultados indicam que as estimativas são sensíveis às hipóteses utilizadas, mas exceto por modelos diferenças em diferenças com tendências quadráticas ou cúbicas, as multas estão aproximadamente no ponto médio das estimativas. Isso indica que as multas estão em linha com os sobrepreços de cartel, mas se recomenda o uso de um conjunto de estimativas produzidas por diferentes métodos para se ter maior segurança de sua adequação.Success in law enforcement of cartel cases hinges on solid investigation procedures and effective punishment. However, the existing legal framework provides guidance on computing fines based on sales revenue, even though it mentions such fines must be no lower than cartel gains. Using data from a real case in Brazil, this paper has two aims: (i) reviewing the difficulties associated with computing cartel overcharges and (ii) checking whether the fines levied on convicted firms are in line with these overcharges. We employ three methodologies to compute these overcharges. We find cartel overcharges estimates might be quite sensitive to its assumptions, but apart from differences in differences models with quadratic and cubictrends the fines are in the middle of the range of cartel overcharge estimates. This indicates that the fines are in line with cartel overcharges, but it is recommended to use a set of estimates produced by different methods to ensure their adequacy

The Market Impact and the Cost of Environmental Policy: Evidence from the Swedish Green Car Rebate

We quantify the effects of the Swedish GCR, a program to reduce oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions in the automobile industry. We find the GCR to increase the market shares of `green cars' and its cost to be $109/tonCO2 saved, thus 5 times the price of an emission permit. Since the main green cars in Sweden are FFVs (flexible-fuel vehicles), which can switch between petrol (gasoline) and ethanol, we also account for fuel choice, which increases the cost of the program. Finally, we show that consumers would have purchased FFVs regardless of the rebate provided by the GCR

Relação entre preço e custo marginal na indústria brasileira

O uso de medidas de produtividade na avaliação de políticas públicas baseadas nasuposição de concorrência perfeita pode levar a conclusões incorretas sobre a suaeficácia. Nesse sentido, o presente estudo busca analisar quão distante da competiçãoperfeita a indústria de transformação brasileira se encontra. Os resultados apontam que,em média, o preço é 2,41 vezes o custo marginal, rejeitando a validade da hipótese deconcorrência perfeita e indicando que análises que não levam em conta tal padrão decompetição geram conclusões errôneas. Os setores florestal e metalúrgico apresentaramos maiores mark ups (3,81 e 2,95 respectivamente), sendo tal conclusão robusta aretornos de escala e formas alternativas de mensuração.The use of productivity measures based on the assumption of perfect competition toevaluate public policies can lead to incorrect conclusions about them. In this sense,the present research aims to analyze how far from perfect competition the Brazilianindustry is. The results indicated that the prices are, in general, 2.41 times marginalcost, which shows that the perfect competition hypothesis is not valid for the Brazilianindustry and indicate that not considering the competition pattern lead to incorrectconclusions. The forest and metallurgy sectors had the highest mark ups (3.81 and 2.95respectively), and these results are robust to assumptions about scale economies anddifferent measures of mark up. &nbsp

Existe influência da ideologia sobre o resultado fiscal dos governos estaduais brasileiros?

This paper focuses on the influence of party ideology on fiscal behavior in Brazilian states between 1986 and 2005. To carry out its objectives, the paper first builds up a new variable to measure party ideology of both the state Executive and Legislative. The paper, also considers the series of institutional changes, hardening budget constraints, which occurred during the period. Three results stand out. First, party ideology does influence fiscal behavior. Second, right wing governments showed better fiscal behavior, mostly by increasing revenues. Finally, institutional changes mediated the influence of party ideology over fiscal behavior: left wing government showed better fiscal results, mostly as a reaction to the debt restructuring process; similarly, left wing legislatives showed better fiscal results as a reaction the Fiscal Responsibility Law. The results were obtained with a Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE).O objetivo deste artigo é estudar a relação entre a ideologia partidária e o resultado fiscal dos governos estaduais brasileiros entre os anos de 1986 e 2005. Para alcançar esses objetivos, construiu-se uma variável ideológica para representar a ideologia do Executivo e do Legislativo. Três resultados merecem destaque neste trabalho. Primeiro, existe influência da ideologia partidária na determinação do resultado fiscal dos governos estaduais. Segundo, governos classificados ideologicamente como de direita produziram melhores resultados primários, principalmente pelo aumento de receitas. Terceiro, as mudanças institucionais introduzidas pelo governo federal nos anos noventa influenciaram a relação entre a ideologia e o resultado primário: os governos de esquerda apresentaram melhores resultados fiscais depois de introduzida a legislação que reestruturou as suas dívidas; de forma similar, os Legislativos de esquerda passaram a apoiar melhoria nos resultados fiscais depois da adoção da Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal. Os resultados deste trabalho foram alcançados usando a técnica de Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE)