Opening the Convergence Black Box: Measurement Problems and Demographic Aspects

Brazil, regional convergence, regional growth, birth cohorts, micro data

The Costs of Displacement in Brazil

This paper uses new data that combines information on workers’ education and earnings trajectories with information about their firms to estimate the costs of job displacement in Brazil. We find that high-tenure workers displaced from their firms during mass lay-offs suffer a long-term loss in monthly wages of about 20% per year. We show that this result is robust to different treatment of workers that leave the formal sector of the economy and is driven by the losses suffered by more educated individuals working in big firms at the time of displacement. We conclude that the displacement effects are the result of a combination of the depreciation of firm-specific human capital and the loss of a “good jobâ€Displacement, Wages, Human Capital

Labor market turnover and inequality in Latin America

This paper describes the patterns of worker turnover in selected Latin American countries and their implications for wage inequality. It documents a higher positive annual wage growth rate for jobto-job changers compared to stayers, due to turnover capturing the immediate gains from search behavior in the short run. Younger workers benefit relatively more from the positive effects of jobto-job changes, as expected. We also show that transitions are relatively higher within the informal sector for most countries, and particularly so for workers without college education. Moreover, total job separations and transitions from formal into informal employment occur more often among low-skill and young individuals. Next, the paper analyzes wage growth by percentiles for all workers and job-to-job movers for each country over a more extended period. We find that jobto-job changes are inequality-reducing in the short run, consistent with search gains associated with turnover exhausting more rapidly for high-paid workers. In contrast, we find that human capital effects dominate the search effects in the long run, as human capital accumulates over time. Thus, long-run wage growth is lower for job changers than for stayers, so that, while in the short run the search effects tend to dominate those of human capital, in the long run the opposite occurs. As unskilled workers change jobs more frequently, this suggests that job changes are inequalityincreasing in the long run. A potential explanation for limited wage growth in Latin American economies may include high informality rates. Policies to reduce wage inequality should focus on improving the conditions for positive turnover towards better investment and, thus, higher-quality jobs

Lockdown and Covid-19:Brazilian evidence

We estimate the impact of strict social distancing policies on isolation, COVID-19 cases and deaths, and employment in Brazil. Compiling social distancing decrees and combining them with publicly available data, we identify a set of treated municipalities that adopted lockdown between May and June 2021 in the State of São Paulo and build a control group with cities from the same Regional Health Departments. We estimate the lockdown effects using a Difference- -in-Differences model with two-way fixed effects and staggered adoption. Our findings suggest that the policy increased social distancing one week after its adoption, decreased cases from two weeks on, reduced deaths from four weeks on, and did not significantly impact employment.Nós estimamos o impacto de políticas restritivas de distanciamento social sobre isolamento, casos e mortes de COVID-19 e emprego no Brasil. Compilando decretos de distanciamento social e combinando-os com dados públicos, nós identificamos um conjunto de municípios tratados que adotaram lockdown entre maio e junho de 2021 no Estado de São Paulo e construímos um grupo de controle com cidades dos mesmos Departamentos Regionais de Saúde. Nós estimamos os efeitos do lockdown usando um modelo de Diferença-em Diferenças com efeitos fixos de dois níveis e adoção escalonada. Nossas conclusões sugerem que a política aumentou o isolamento social uma semana após sua adoção, diminuiu os casos a partir de duas semanas, reduziu as mortes a partir de quatro semanas e não teve impactos significativos no emprego

A relação entre o desempenho escolar e os salários no Brasil

O objetivo desse trabalho é analisar a relação entre o desempenho escolar e os salários dos jovens brasileiros. Examinamos se a qualidade do ensino, mensurada pelas notas obtidas por uma geração em exames de proficiência ao término do ensino médio, afeta os salários a serem recebidos por esta geração quando ela estiver no mercado de trabalho, cinco anos depois

Unions and the Economic Performanceof Brazilian Establishments

Using a pooled sample, this paper indicates that unions seem to affect the economic performance of Brazilian establishments, especially in terms of profitability, employment and productivity. Unions tend to reduce profitability, whereas the relationship between union density and productivity, employment and average wages seems to be concave. These performance indicators first rise with union density up to a certain density level (usually about 50 percent) and then start to decline. These results indicate that some unionism may be good for the plants` economic performance, although too much unionism may start having negative effects.

Relatório de avaliação economica: Programa jovens urbanos ( 3ª edição))

O estudo traz resultados da avaliação da terceira edição do Programa Jovens Urbanos, realizada entre 2007 e 2008, nos bairros de Lajeado e Grajaú, São Paulo, SP. Os indicadores referem-se principalmente a dois objetivos do programa: contribuir para a empregabilidade e para a educação dos jovens