Fiscal Decentralization and Public R&D Policy: A Country Panel Analysis

This paper presents a first analysis of the potential link between the level of fiscal decentralization of a country and its public investment in innovation. We present a theoretical model where a ‘benevolent government’ invests in R&D aiming at maximizing net income, and R&D results are subject to interregional knowledge spillovers. The model predicts that decentralization leads to a lower level of public spending on innovation, and to a lower share of basic research in the government R&D budget. These hypotheses are empirically tested using country aggregate data. The results provide empirical support to the mentioned hypotheses, as we find evidence that higher levels of both expenditure and revenue decentralization are associated with a lower intensity of basic research in public R&D and with a lower level of R&D spending. The strength of the evidence, however, is weakened by the small sample size and shortcomings of the indicators used in the analysis

Access to Graduate Education in Brazil: predictors of choice and enrollment in master’s degree programs

This paper presents an assessment of the factors associated with access to master’s degree programs in Brazil, investigating whether there is evidence of inequity arising from students’ personal and socioeconomic characteristics. A rich and novel dataset comprising microdata on undergraduate college graduates and new master’s students is used for the empirical analysis. Students’ decisions to progress to graduate education are modeled as a two-stage process, and the parameters are estimated separately for each broad academic field using a conditional logit model for the first stage, and a logistic regression analysis for the second stage. The main findings are: (a) there is strong evidence of low mobility of students starting graduate education, and they are far more likely to choose a master’s degree program in the same university or close to where they graduated from college; (b) academic performance and activities during undergraduate program in college are associated with an increase in the relative odds of progressing to graduate education; (c) in most broad academic fields, no evidence that women, black or brown students, economically disadvantaged students, foreigners and people with disabilities are less likely to start a master’s program is found; and (d) a significant association between the odds of enrollment and parental education is not observed in nearly all fields. The study points to different recommendations and to further research questions to understand and improve graduate education in Brazil

Access to Graduate Education in Brazil: predictors of choice and enrollment in master’s degree programs

This paper presents an assessment of the factors associated with access to master’s degree programs in Brazil, investigating whether there is evidence of inequity arising from students’ personal and socioeconomic characteristics. A rich and novel dataset comprising microdata on undergraduate college graduates and new master’s students is used for the empirical analysis. Students’ decisions to progress to graduate education are modeled as a two-stage process, and the parameters are estimated separately for each broad academic field using a conditional logit model for the first stage, and a logistic regression analysis for the second stage. The main findings are: (a) there is strong evidence of low mobility of students starting graduate education, and they are far more likely to choose a master’s degree program in the same university or close to where they graduated from college; (b) academic performance and activities during undergraduate program in college are associated with an increase in the relative odds of progressing to graduate education; (c) in most broad academic fields, no evidence that women, black or brown students, economically disadvantaged students, foreigners and people with disabilities are less likely to start a master’s program is found; and (d) a significant association between the odds of enrollment and parental education is not observed in nearly all fields. The study points to different recommendations and to further research questions to understand and improve graduate education in Brazil

Impact assessment of innovation tax incentives in Brazil

Purpose - This paper evaluates the effects of tax incentives on business innovation in Brazil that were established by Law 11,196/05 (the ‘Fiscal Incentives Law’) to test whether they have had a positive impact on beneficiary firms’ innovation input and output and on their performance.Design/methodology/approach – The policy impacts are estimated using microdata on 13,706 firms available in the 2008 and 2011 editions of the Brazilian Innovation Survey (PINTEC) and by applying propensity score matching with difference-in-differences.Findings - The results suggest a positive and statistically significant impact of the policy on research and development (R&D) expenditures (average of approximately US$ 264,000 in 2011), the number of research staff (average of five researchers), and total employment (approximately 5% of the beneficiary firms’ mean size). However, no impact was found on the overall spending on innovative activities, the percentage of sales and exports from new products, net revenue, or net revenue per employee.Practical implications – The findings provide empirical support in favor of tax incentives as a policy tool to boost business innovation in the country. However, the absence of significant effects on innovative activities expenditures and on most indicators of innovation output and firms’ performance reveals shortcomings of the policy that need to be addressed.Originality/value – The study complements and advances the findings of previous studies by assessing policy impact on total innovative activities expenditures and on innovation output and firm performance

Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil: setting the baseline knowledge on the animal diversity in Brazil

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. In this context, the Brazilian megadiverse fauna is no exception, and the Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil (CTFB) (http://fauna.jbrj.gov.br/), made public in 2015, represents a database on biodiversity anchored on a list of valid and expertly recognized scientific names of animals in Brazil. The CTFB is updated in near real time by a team of more than 800 specialists. By January 1, 2024, the CTFB compiled 133,691 nominal species, with 125,138 that were considered valid. Most of the valid species were arthropods (82.3%, with more than 102,000 species) and chordates (7.69%, with over 11,000 species). These taxa were followed by a cluster composed of Mollusca (3,567 species), Platyhelminthes (2,292 species), Annelida (1,833 species), and Nematoda (1,447 species). All remaining groups had less than 1,000 species reported in Brazil, with Cnidaria (831 species), Porifera (628 species), Rotifera (606 species), and Bryozoa (520 species) representing those with more than 500 species. Analysis of the CTFB database can facilitate and direct efforts towards the discovery of new species in Brazil, but it is also fundamental in providing the best available list of valid nominal species to users, including those in science, health, conservation efforts, and any initiative involving animals. The importance of the CTFB is evidenced by the elevated number of citations in the scientific literature in diverse areas of biology, law, anthropology, education, forensic science, and veterinary science, among others

BRAZILIAN INNOVATION TAX POLICY AND INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT: EVIDENCE FROM UNITED STATES MULTINATIONALS AND INTERNATIONAL PATENT APPLICATIONS

In the last decades, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have increasedtheir internationalization levels of innovation activities. Brazil has benefited fromsuch changes and received increasing investment from MNEs. In 2005, the federalgovernment approved new tax incentives (Law 11,196/05) to foster business innovationin the country by reducing the tax cost of research and development (R&D) activities.This paper investigates whether these tax breaks have attracted ‘footloose R&D’,diverting international investment from other economies. After a literature reviewon locational factors for R&D attraction and an analysis of the Brazilian case, aneconometric model is presented, using data on R&D investment by U.S. MNEs andpriority patent applications. No evidence that Brazilian tax incentives have attractedinternational R&D from alternative host countries is found. This result is in accordancewith previous research suggesting international R&D performed in Brazil is mainlyadaptive and support-oriented and, for this reason, tax incentives are not a primaryattraction factor. It also suggests that claims that international fiscal competition lead toa zero-sum game may be unfounded for the Brazilian case.In the last decades, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have increasedtheir internationalization levels of innovation activities. Brazil has benefited fromsuch changes and received increasing investment from MNEs. In 2005, the federalgovernment approved new tax incentives (Law 11,196/05) to foster business innovationin the country by reducing the tax cost of research and development (R&D) activities.This paper investigates whether these tax breaks have attracted ‘footloose R&D’,diverting international investment from other economies. After a literature reviewon locational factors for R&D attraction and an analysis of the Brazilian case, aneconometric model is presented, using data on R&D investment by U.S. MNEs andpriority patent applications. No evidence that Brazilian tax incentives have attractedinternational R&D from alternative host countries is found. This result is in accordancewith previous research suggesting international R&D performed in Brazil is mainlyadaptive and support-oriented and, for this reason, tax incentives are not a primaryattraction factor. It also suggests that claims that international fiscal competition lead toa zero-sum game may be unfounded for the Brazilian case