THE DETERMINANTS OF CRIMINAL VICTIMIZATION IN SÃO PAULO STATE

In this paper an exploratory research of the determinants of criminal victimization in São Paulo state is conducted using the life-style and opportunity models with Seade's 1998 Pesquisa de Condição de Vida (Life Condition Survey). São Paulo is the most populous Brazilian state with 37 million inhabitants, responding for more than one third of the Brazilian GDP. Our results indicate that the life-style and opportunity models had a good fitting to the data. As expected, the likelihood of being a burglary/larceny victim is increasing in income and if the person is male, and it decreases if the person is married and has few years of schooling. In relation to assault, the victimization likelihood increases considerably if the person is asian, single or divorced, and foreigner, on the other hand, it is decreasing in income and years of schooling, and it is smaller for black or multi-racial background people.

Fluxo de Caixa, ADRs e Restrições de Crédito no Brasil

Following Almeida, Campello and Weisbach (2003), we use the link between financial constraints and firm’s demand for liquidity to test the effect of financial constraints on firm policies in Brazil. The effect of financial constraints can be captured by a firm’s propensity to save cash out in addition of cash inflows. While constrained firms should have a positive cash flow sensitivity of cash, unconstrained firms’ cash savings should not be systematically related to cash flows. Using 2SLS method to deal with endogeneity problems, we estimate the cash flow sensitivity of cash using a large sample of Brazilian manufacturing firms over the 1995-2007 period and, using the access to international financial markets trough ADRs as a criterion for financial constraint, we find that firms that are more likely to be financially constrained display a significantly positive cash flow sensitivity of cash, while unconstrained firms do not.Seguindo Almeida, Campello e Weisbach (2003), usamos a relação entre restrição de crédito e a demanda por liquidez para mensurar o efeito das restrições crédito sobre as políticas das empresas brasileiras. O efeito da restrição de crédito pode ser capturado via propensão à poupança de fundos líquidos extraordinários. Enquanto empresas que enfrentam restrições de crédito deveriam apresentar uma sensibilidade positiva à entrada de recursos extraordinários em seu fluxo de caixa, as empresas irrestritas não apresentariam qualquer relação neste sentido. Utilizando o método 2SLS, estimamos a sensibilidade do fluxo de caixa à receitas extraordinárias usando uma amostra de empresas brasileiras entre 1995 e 2007 e, utilizando o acesso ao mercado financeiro internacional através de ADRs, verificamos que as empresas restritas financeiramente apresentam uma sensibilidade positiva do fluxo de caixa à recursos extraordinários, enquanto as empresas irrestritas não se comportam da mesma forma

Measuring illicit financial flows: A gravity model approach to estimate international trade misinvoicing

Illicit financial flows have recently attracted the attention of academia, practitioners, and multilateral organizations who consider them harmful to economic development. Some observers suggest that many of these flows occur via the misinvoicing of international trade transactions. This study develops a novel methodology based on the gravity model of international trade to estimate illicit financial flows using publicly available product-level international trade data. It contributes to the literature by estimating product-level transportation and insurance costs and providing, for the first time, an estimation for all countries of an upper bound of the values of export and of import over- and under-misinvoicing separately, without resorting to assumptions about trade statistics reliability. Application of the methodology is illustrated using six-digit product-level UN Comtrade data for 2013-16. The results indicate that misinvoicing is not confined to a few products or countries but is a widespread phenomenon that deserves future research

The impact of the China shock on the manufacturing labor market in Brazil

The vigorous growth of the Chinese economy together with its growing role in international trade has raised fears of deindustrialization among developing countries. This study draws on the large increase in the international trade exposure of the Brazilian economy from 2000 to 2012 to assess the impacts of trade on its manufacturing sector. In this period, import penetration increased by 25%, and at the same time, Chinas share of import penetration increased from 3% to 20%. Using household survey data that encompasses both formal and informal workers, this papers estimates indicate that higher import penetration reduces the employment level, the share of employment in the population, the hourly wage, the interindustry wage premium, and the share of informal employment. The industry-level results indicate that a rise in import penetration from either China or the rest of the world (ROW) reduced the employment level, hourly wage, and share of informal employment while increasing the interindustry wage premium. The worker-level results suggest that industry-level import penetration from China and the ROW raised workers wages and reduced the likelihood of their being informally employed. The state-level estimates imply that Chinese and ROW imports per worker initially reduced the employment level, the hourly wage, and share of informal employment, but these effects were reversed after 2008. Chinese imports per firm had a negative impact on the share of informal employment and a positive one on average years of schooling. Before 2008, Chinese imports per firm increased the share of workers with both high-school and college educations, and the net impact on both shares became negative after 2008. Estimates using actual imports per worker and per firm did not impact state-level labor-market outcomes. Finally, these effects were modulated by the labor intensity of the industry, the state-level initial share of manufacturing in the gross domestic product, the availability of a sea harbor in the state, and the implementation of the Nova Matriz Economica policies in 2008

Consumption in South America: myopia or liquidity constraints?

In this paper, we consider Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela for a study on aggregate consumption behavior, in which we test the life cycle-permanent income hypothesis prediction that consumption growth depends only on the interest rate. Nevertheless, our results suggest that in general predicted income is a relevant covariate. We checked for some possible reasons behind this result, namely liquidity constraints, myopia and perverse asymmetry. We found support for liquidity constrained consumers in Brazil and Colombia, and perverse asymmetry for Peru. Finally, the results were uninformative about consumption in Venezuela

Consumption in South America: myopia or liquidity constraints?

In this paper, we consider Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela for a study on aggregate consumption behavior, in which we test the life cycle-permanent income hypothesis prediction that consumption growth depends only on the interest rate. Nevertheless, our results suggest that in general predicted income is a relevant covariate. We checked for some possible reasons behind this result, namely liquidity constraints, myopia and perverse asymmetry. We found support for liquidity constrained consumers in Brazil and Colombia, and perverse asymmetry for Peru. Finally, the results were uninformative about consumption in Venezuela

Consumption in South America: myopia or liquidity constraints?

In this paper, we consider Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela for a study on aggregate consumption behavior, in which we test the life cycle-permanent income hypothesis prediction that consumption growth depends only on the interest rate. Nevertheless, our results suggest that in general predicted income is a relevant covariate. We checked for some possible reasons behind this result, namely liquidity constraints, myopia and perverse asymmetry. We found support for liquidity constrained consumers in Brazil and Colombia, and perverse asymmetry for Peru. Finally, the results were uninformative about consumption in Venezuela

Fluxo de Caixa, ADRs e Restrições de Crédito no Brasil

Seguindo Almeida, Campello e Weisbach (2003), usamos a relação entre restrição de crédito e a demanda por liquidez para mensurar o efeito das restrições crédito sobre as políticas das empresas brasileiras. O efeito da restrição de crédito pode ser capturado via propensão à poupança de fundos líquidos extraordinários. Enquanto empresas que enfrentam restrições de crédito deveriam apresentar uma sensibilidade positiva à entrada de recursos extraordinários em seu fluxo de caixa, as empresas irrestritas não apresentariam qualquer relação neste sentido. Utilizando o método 2SLS, estimamos a sensibilidade do fluxo de caixa à receitas extraordinárias usando uma amostra de empresas brasileiras entre 1995 e 2007 e, utilizando o acesso ao mercado financeiro internacional através de ADRs, verificamos que as empresas restritas financeiramente apresentam uma sensibilidade positiva do fluxo de caixa à recursos extraordinários, enquanto as empresas irrestritas não se comportam da mesma forma