9,652 research outputs found
Policy variables as instruments for the minimum wage
The international literature on minimum wage greatly lacks empirical evidence from developing countries. In Brazil, not only are increases in the minimum wage large and frequent but also the minimum wage has been used as anti-inflation policy in addition to its social role. This paper estimates the effects of the minimum wage on employment using monthly household data from 1982 to 2000 aggregated at regional level. A number of conceptual and identification questions is discussed as tentative explanation of the non-negative estimates found in the literature, for example: (1) The use of political variables as excluded exogenous instruments for the minimum wage variable; (2) The superiority of “spike” over “fraction affected” and “Kaitz index” as a minimum wage variable; (3) The decomposition of the minimum wage employment effect into hours worked and number of jobs effects; (4) Robustness checks accounting for sorting into informal and public sectors. Robust results to various alternative specifications and instrumental variables indicate that an increase in the minimum wage has moderately small adverse effects on employment
The effect of minimum wages on prices in Brazil
There is very little evidence on the effects of the minimum wage on prices in the international literature and none
whatsoever for developing countries. This paper analyzes the effects of the minimum wage on prices using monthly
Brazilian household and price data from 1982 to 2000 aggregated at a regional level. A number of conceptual and
identification questions are discussed, for example: (1) Empirical evidence on price effects might help to answer the
question of who pays for the higher costs: firms, consumers, or unemployed. The answer to this question is important for
the controversial recent minimum wage debate. Employment might not be affected if firms are able to pass through to
prices the higher labour costs associated to a minimum wage increase. (2) If the poor are the consumers of minimum
wage labour intensive goods, or if these goods represent a large proportion of their consumption bundle, then minimum
wage increases might hurt rather than aid the poor. Furthermore, if minimum wage increases are passed on to consumer
prices causing inflation, they might again hurt the poor, who disproportionately suffer from inflation. This is particularly
so in the presence of hyperinflation; even more so if the minimum wage has been used as anti-inflation policy in addition
to its social role, as in Brazil. Robustness checks on the price effects at a regional level, on low and high income
consumers and under low inflation are performed. Robust results indicate that minimum wage increases raise overall
prices in Brazil. The resulting inflation is the same for the poor and the rich, smaller in low inflation periods, and larger
in poorer regions
The effects of the minimum wage on wages and employment in Brazil: a menu of minimum wage variables
The international literature on minimum wage strongly lacks empirical evidence from developing countries. In
Brazil, not only are increases in the minimum wage large and frequent - unlike the typically small increases focused
upon in most of the existing literature - but also the minimum wage plays a central and complex role. In addition to
its social role the minimum wage has been used as anti-inflationary policy, confirming its importance to the
Brazilian Economy. This paper analyzes the effects of the minimum wage on both wages and employment using
monthly household-level data (similar to the US CPS) over a reasonably long time period. A number of conceptual
and identification questions is here discussed. Various strategies on how to best measure the effect of a constant
(national) minimum wage are summarized in a “menu” of minimum wage variables. Also, an employment
decomposition that separately estimates the hours worked and the number of jobs effects is used. Robust results
indicate that an increase in the minimum wage strongly compresses the wages distribution with moderately small
adverse effects on employment
Thermodynamics of toroidal black holes
The thermodynamical properties of toroidal black holes in the grand canonical
ensemble are investigated using York's formalism. The black hole is enclosed in
a cavity with finite radius where the temperature and electrostatic potential
are fixed. The boundary conditions allow one to compute the relevant
thermodynamical quantities, e.g. thermal energy, entropy and specific heat.
This black hole is thermodynamically stable and dominates the grand partition
function. This means that there is no phase transition, as the one encountered
for spherical black holes.Comment: 11 pages, 2 eps figures, revte
Black holes and fundamental physics
We give a review of classical, thermodynamic and quantum properties of black
holes relevant to fundamental physics.Comment: Invited talk at the Fifth International Workshop on New Worlds in
Astroparticle Physics, University of the Algarve, Faro, Portugal, January
8-10, 2005, published in the Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop
on New Worlds in Astroparticle Physics, World Scientific (2006), eds. Ana M.
Mour\~ao et al., p. 71-9
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