Essays on Brazilian Political Economy

[eng] The article 1 addresses the role of political parties and studies whether popularity shocks are crucial for electoral accountability beyond their effects on voter behavior. It specifically examines the impact of the revelation of information about a government's conduct on the types of candidates who stand for election. The empirical test focuses on the Brazilian city council elections in 2004 and 2008. The identification approach exploits the randomness of the timing of the release of audit reports on the use of federal funds by municipal governments. The study finds that when the audit reveals a high level of corruption (i.e., when it represents a negative popularity shock), the parties supporting the incumbent select more educated candidates. On the contrary, parties pick, on average, less educated candidates when the audit finds low levels of corruption (i.e., when it represents a positive popularity shock). These effects are stronger in municipalities that have easier access to local media. The evidence confirms that parties are strategic players that consider specific features of the electoral competition when making decisions and that their decisions are affected by shocks that influence the electoral race. The article 2 is devoted to examining aspects of the voter preference assumptions. Citizen assessment of government performance is a cornerstone of successful democratic functioning. However, accountability is a double-edged sword. When voters misunderstand the stakes, and provide the wrong incentives to elected officials, political accountability leads to an implementation of suboptimal welfare policies. This paper reveals that an electorate can demand clientelism. To address this question, I study the behavior of voters in a context of vote-buying in Brazilian politics known as the drought industry. The data cover the Brazilian democratic elections from 1998 to 2012, and as empirical strategies I implement both fixed-effects models with panel data and a regression discontinuity design with heterogeneous treatment effects. I find evidence that after a drought, voters increase the vote share of local incumbent parties that are politically aligned with the central government to ensure the inflow of partisan government aid relief. Such behavior reinforces the central government's incentives to bias policies in favor of politically aligned municipalities to influence elections. Consequently, the cycle of distortion of aid relief allocation is perpetuated. In connection with the findings indicating that the incidence of droughts and the Brazilian political economy are directly linked, the article 3 investigates the behavior of the local governments regarding the level of corruption. The analysis studies whether the allocation of aid relief policies increases the level of corruption in the context of natural disasters. More specifically, the study investigates the number of federal emergency declarations against droughts, as a proxy for aid relief, and the number of irregularities in the local governments' expenditures found by auditors in Brazilian cities during a full mayor's term. The study implements an instrumental variable approach exploiting the quasi-random nature of the cycle component of a municipality's aridity relative to its trend. The findings show that an additional recognition of the state of emergency leads to an increase in corruption per capita for an entire term of a mayor

Vandermonde-subspace Frequency Division Multiplexing for Two-Tiered Cognitive Radio Networks

Vandermonde-subspace frequency division multiplexing (VFDM) is an overlay spectrum sharing technique for cognitive radio. VFDM makes use of a precoder based on a Vandermonde structure to transmit information over a secondary system, while keeping an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based primary system interference-free. To do so, VFDM exploits frequency selectivity and the use of cyclic prefixes by the primary system. Herein, a global view of VFDM is presented, including also practical aspects such as linear receivers and the impact of channel estimation. We show that VFDM provides a spectral efficiency increase of up to 1 bps/Hz over cognitive radio systems based on unused band detection. We also present some key design parameters for its future implementation and a feasible channel estimation protocol. Finally we show that, even when some of the theoretical assumptions are relaxed, VFDM provides non-negligible rates while protecting the primary system.Comment: 9 pages, accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Communication

Popularity shocks and political selection

We observe that popularity shocks are crucial for electoral accountability beyond their effects on voters’ behaviors. By focusing on Brazilian politics, we show that the disclosure of audit reports on the (mis)use of federal funds by local administrators affects the type of candidates who stand for election. When the audit finds low levels of corruption, the parties supporting the incumbent select less-educated candidates. On the contrary, parties pick more-educated candidates when the audit reveals a high level of corruption. These effects are stronger in municipalities that have easier access to local media

Popularity shocks and political selection: the effects of anti-corruption audits on candidates quality

We show that the disclosure of information about a government's conduct affects the types of candidates who stand for election. Our empirical test focuses on Brazilian city council elections in 2004 and 2008. The identification strategy exploits the randomness of the timing of the release of audit reports on the (mis)use of federal funds by local governments. We observe that when the audit finds low levels of corruption (i.e., when it represents a positive popularity shock), the parties supporting the incumbent select less-educated candidates. On the contrary, parties pick, on average, more-educated candidates when the audit reveals a high level of corruption (i.e., when it represents a negative popularity shock). These effects are stronger in municipalities that have easier access to local media. Our evidence confirms that parties are strategic players: their decisions are affected by shocks that influence the electoral race

Ignorance is bliss: voter education and alignment in distributive politics

Central politicians channel resources to sub-national entities for political gains. We show formally that the central politicians' allocation decision has two drivers: political alignment (between central and local politicians) and the level of local political accountability. However, drivers count one at a time: alignment matters before local elections, while local political accountability matters before central elections. We then perform a test of our model using Brazilian data, which corroborates our results. Furthermore, we show and explain why political accountability becomes a curse: better educated districts receive fewer transfers in equilibriu

CONSIDERAÇÕES SOBRE A UTILIZAÇÃO DA ARBITRAGEM NOS CONFLITOS ENVOLVENDO A ADMINISTRAÇÃO PÚBLICA (A APLICAÇÃO DA LEI Nº 13.129, DE 26.05.2015)

RESUMO: Partindo do princípio da plenitude da tutela jurisdicional, em exame de direito comparado, e analisando conceitos clássicos do Direito Administrativo, este artigo pretende examinar alguns aspectos principais quanto à utilização da arbitragem na solução de conflitos envolvendo a Administração Pública, especialmente à vista da Lei nº 13.129/2015.   Palavras-chave: princípio da plenitude da tutela jurisdicional; arbitragem; Administração Pública; direitos disponíveis; legalidade e publicidade

Voters sometimes provide the wrong incentives. The lesson of the Brazilian drought industry

Citizen assessment of government performance is a cornerstone of the successful functioning of democracy. However, accountability is a double-edged sword. When voters misunderstand the stakes and provide the wrong incentives to elected officials, political accountability leads to an implementation of suboptimal welfare policies. This paper reveals that an electorate can demand clientelism. I find evidence that after a drought, voters increase the vote share of local incumbent parties that are politically aligned with the central government to ensure the inflow of partisan government aid relief. Such behavior reinforces the central government’s incentives to bias policies in favor of politically aligned municipalities to influence elections. Consequently, the circle of distortion of aid relief allocation is perpetuated. The data cover the Brazilian democratic elections from 1998 to 2012. I use fixed effects models with panel data and a regression discontinuity design with heterogeneous treatment effects. The results resemble a long-run patronage equilibrium

Voters sometimes provide the wrong incentives. The lesson of the Brazilian drought industry

Citizen assessment of government performance is a cornerstone of the successful functioning of democracy. However, accountability is a double-edged sword. When voters misunderstand the stakes and provide the wrong incentives to elected officials, political accountability leads to an implementation of suboptimal welfare policies. This paper reveals that an electorate can demand clientelism. I find evidence that after a drought, voters increase the vote share of local incumbent parties that are politically aligned with the central government to ensure the inflow of partisan government aid relief. Such behavior reinforces the central government’s incentives to bias policies in favor of politically aligned municipalities to influence elections. Consequently, the circle of distortion of aid relief allocation is perpetuated. The data cover the Brazilian democratic elections from 1998 to 2012. I use fixed effects models with panel data and a regression discontinuity design with heterogeneous treatment effects. The results resemble a long-run patronage equilibrium

Desapropriação por interesse social para fins de reforma agrária : o impedimento do § 6°, do art. 2°, da Lei n° 8.629/93, na redação dada pela Medida Provisória n° 2.183-56/2001, e sua aplicação n apráxis jurisprudencial

Demonstra a precariedade do acolhimento do parágrafo 6°, do artigo 2°, da Lei n° 8.629, de 25 de fevereiro de 1993, para obstar ações de desapropriação para fins de reforma agrária, a partir da realidade estampada em vários feitos judiciais, manejados com vistas a impedir a desapropriação, seja quando ainda em desenvolvimento os procedimentos administrativos (fase administrativa), seja quando já ajuizada a ação expropriatória (etapa judicial). Far-se-á considerações acerca do dispositivo anteriormente transcrito e serão detalhados precedentes jurisprudenciais, colhidos junto ao Supremo Tribunal Federal e ao Tribunal Regional Federal da 5" Região

Fast-RAT Scheduling in a 5G Multi-RAT Scenario

The authors exploit a Fast RAT switch solution to improve QoS metrics of the system by means of efficient RAT scheduling. Analyses presented here show a better understanding concerning which system measurements are most efficient in a mutliple-RAT scenario. More specifically, they present an analysis concerning the metrics that should be used as RAT scheduling criteria and how frequent these switching evaluations should be done