Tax Incentives and Job Creation in the Tourism Industry of Brazil

In recent decades, a significant number of developing countries have implemented fiscal incentives programs for the tourism industry as part of their regional development policies. The main objective of these programs is to increase local investment and employment, as tourism activities are labor intensive. Little evidence is available, however, to assess the effect of these policies on job creation. This paper analyzes a fiscal incentives program that the Brazilian federal government introduced in 2002 to develop the tourism industry in the undeveloped region of Northeast Brazil. It provides evidence that income tax credits had a significant positive effect on job creation. We find that local employment in the tourism industry was on average 34 percent higher in those municipalities that benefited from the program

Essays in infrastructure and environmental policies

In the first chapter, "Does the Stage of Development Matter for Infrastructure Payoffs?”, I consider infrastructure as a channel for economic development. I address the question of whether the impact of infrastructure varies according to the stage of development of a country. I answer this question through an innovative methodology exploiting the information included in papers that provide estimates of infrastructure payoffs. I use a logit model whose dependent variable indicates whether these estimates are positively significant. To account for the variation of this dependent variable, I consider the sample characteristics of estimates. One of these characteristics is the stage of development of the countries included in the samples. Specifically, I use the weight of each of four income categories in the sample as an explanatory variable.The second chapter, "Climate Change Mitigation in the Presence of Technology Spillovers", explores the implications of an increase in clean technology spillovers between developed and developing countries. I build a 2-stage 2-country game of abatements in which players are linked with technology spillovers. The two countries are asymmetric in their technology endowment. Country 1 - the developed country - is the only one able to invest in technology that lowers abatement costs. Country 2 - the developing country - captures only part of the technology provided by country 1.The third chapter, "Threshold Effects in Self-Enforcing International Environmental Agreements" is co-written with Renaud Foucart. In this chapter, we address the stability of self-enforcing International Environmental Agreements (IEAs) with the presence of a threshold of irreversible climate change. Climate scientists recognize the existence of human-induced abrupt climate changes that are likely to occur when the climate system crosses some threshold. We show that taking into account these threshold effects - when identified with enough accuracy - allows for the existence of more ambitious agreements than those predicted by the traditional literature on IEAs. When considering abrupt irreversible damage, the contribution of any country that helps prevent the world from such a catastrophe is very large. Consequently, a high number of signatories that could potentially prevent the climate system from crossing the threshold could form a self-enforcing agreement.Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe

Essays in infrastructure and environmental policies

In the first chapter, "Does the Stage of Development Matter for Infrastructure Payoffs?”, I consider infrastructure as a channel for economic development. I address the question of whether the impact of infrastructure varies according to the stage of development of a country. I answer this question through an innovative methodology exploiting the information included in papers that provide estimates of infrastructure payoffs. I use a logit model whose dependent variable indicates whether these estimates are positively significant. To account for the variation of this dependent variable, I consider the sample characteristics of estimates. One of these characteristics is the stage of development of the countries included in the samples. Specifically, I use the weight of each of four income categories in the sample as an explanatory variable.The second chapter, "Climate Change Mitigation in the Presence of Technology Spillovers", explores the implications of an increase in clean technology spillovers between developed and developing countries. I build a 2-stage 2-country game of abatements in which players are linked with technology spillovers. The two countries are asymmetric in their technology endowment. Country 1 - the developed country - is the only one able to invest in technology that lowers abatement costs. Country 2 - the developing country - captures only part of the technology provided by country 1.The third chapter, "Threshold Effects in Self-Enforcing International Environmental Agreements" is co-written with Renaud Foucart. In this chapter, we address the stability of self-enforcing International Environmental Agreements (IEAs) with the presence of a threshold of irreversible climate change. Climate scientists recognize the existence of human-induced abrupt climate changes that are likely to occur when the climate system crosses some threshold. We show that taking into account these threshold effects - when identified with enough accuracy - allows for the existence of more ambitious agreements than those predicted by the traditional literature on IEAs. When considering abrupt irreversible damage, the contribution of any country that helps prevent the world from such a catastrophe is very large. Consequently, a high number of signatories that could potentially prevent the climate system from crossing the threshold could form a self-enforcing agreement.Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe

On Clean Technology Diffusion Mechanisms

Developing countries argue that because of their historical responsibility, developed countries should be the ones to bear the costs of climate change mitigation. This paper revisits this argument throughout the analysis of clean technology diffusion between developed and developing countries in the power generation sector. Our model shows that developed countries could decide to develop clean technologies on their own and still achieve substantial results in climate change mitigation. However, this is so if both the clean innovation rate in developed countries is high enough and developing countries own adequate capacities to absorb these innovations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

On Clean Technology Diffusion Mechanisms

Developing countries argue that because of their historical responsibility, developed countries should be the ones to bear the costs of climate change mitigation. This paper revisits this argument throughout the analysis of clean technology diffusion between developed and developing countries in the power generation sector. Our model shows that developed countries could decide to develop clean technologies on their own and still achieve substantial results in climate change mitigation. However, this is so if both the clean innovation rate in developed countries is high enough and developing countries own adequate capacities to absorb these innovations.

El Mercosur : hacia un área monetaria óptima: un análisis empírico

Fil: Garsous, Grégoire . Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Threshold Effects in Self-Enforcing International Environmental Agreements

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Climate Change Mitigation with Technology Spillovers

We explore the implications of an increase in clean technology spillovers between developedand developing countries. We build a 2-stage 2-country game of abatements in whichplayers are linked with technology spillovers. We show that, within a non-cooperative framework,the response of clean technology investments in developed countries to an increase incross-country technology spillovers is ambiguous. If the marginal benefits of these additionalabatements are not sufficiently high, developed countries have a strategic incentive to decreaseinvestments rather than provide developing countries with further incentives to abate. Sucha strategic response jeopardizes the initial effects of an increase in technology spillovers onclimate change mitigation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Cable cars in urban transport: Travel time savings from La Paz-El Alto (Bolivia)

Recently cable cars have come to be considered as an urban transport alternative in many cities. After the successful implementation of Metrocable in Medellin, Colombia, in 2004, other Latin American cities developed projects to incorporate cable cars as part of their public transport network. The system in La Paz and El Alto is the longest urban cable car network in the world. It connects two geographically complex areas with about two million inhabitants and high rates of poverty. This paper provides quantitative evidence of the effect of the La Paz–EL Alto cable car on users’ commuting time, which may have an important impact on many dimensions of people\u27s lives. Because cable cars have only recently been used for urban transit, literature on the subject is scarce. No paper has addressed the case of La Paz and El Alto in Bolivia, as most previous studies have focused on anecdotical information of the case of Medellin. From a mobility survey carried out in La Paz-El Alto, we compare the average commuting travel times of using cable cars (treatment group) over other transport modes (control group). We estimate that travel by cable car cuts commuting times by an average of 22% over other transport modes. This translates into a daily reduction of nine minutes in travel time and an average net benefit of US$0.58 per commute. The effect holds across the distribution of commuting times: No matter how short or long the commute, it takes less time when the cable car network is used

Shared Mandates, Moral Hazard, and Political (Mis)alignment in a Decentralized Economy

This paper investigates the effects of political (mis)alignment on public service delivery when mandates are shared between state and local governments. We analyze local sewage treatment policies in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The Brazilian Constitution divides the mandates related to the control of water pollution. It gives the mayors of municipalities the control of local sanitation services while the governor of the state of São Paulo is responsible for the quality of water bodies (watersheds and rivers). As a result, the state government and municipalities have conflicting objectives. The former is committed to water environmental protection while the latter do not internalize the externalities associated with dumping raw sewage that affect neighboring municipalities. In this paper, we argue that informal arrangements between state and local authorities play a key role in addressing this principal-agent problem or moral hazard issue. Given that constitutional debates have failed to set up a regulatory framework, the de facto solution is a more informal type of regulation anchored in the political leverage of the governor. In particular, the hierarchy within a political party allows the governor to provide aligned mayors with tailored incentives to improve local sanitation infrastructure. As a result, aligned municipalities should, on average, allocate more resources to sewage treatment. Relying on difference-in-differences estimations, we establish a causal relationship between political alignment and higher sewage treatment provision. We find that sewage treatment provision is between 18% and 46% higher in municipalities in which the mayor is aligned with the governor of the state of São Paulo.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe