Drug Use and Capital Accumulation

This paper admits that people are drug users and analyzes whether drug use affects the modified golden rule in the Ramsey model approach. The results show that in a steady state, this model's capital productivity is smaller than in the Ramsey model. However, the optimal intertemporal allocation of resources is ambiguous when the elasticity between drug use and the willingness to work is not null.

Adverse Selection in an Efficiency Wage Model with Heterogeneous Agents

This paper studies efficiency wages in the presence of heterogeneous workers and asymmetric information. It includes an incentive compatibility constraint (ICC) in the efficiency wage model with heterogeneous workers to show that the implementation of efficiency wages in the presence of heterogeneity faces the problem of adverse selection. Employees with a smaller effort aversion supply a smaller level of effort than what is optimal under perfect information due to hidden information. In this vein only a second best solution is obtained.Efficiency Wages, Adverse Selection, Asymmetric Information

Traffic accidents: an econometric investigation

Based on a sample of drivers in Brasilia's streets, this article investigates whether distraction explains traffic accidents. A probit model is estimated to determine the predictive power of several variables on traffic accidents. The main conclusion drawn from this study is that the proxies used to measure distraction, such as the use of cell phones and cigarette smoking in a moving vehicle, are significant factors in determining traffic accidents.discriminant analysis

Institutions and growth: a developing country case study

The Brazilian municipalities show an enormous inequality on its development level. Even within the states considered relatively prosperous, there are huge internal disparities on income levels. The richest Brazilian municipality's GDP per capita is about 190 times greater than the poorest municipality's, according to IBGE (2000) database. A possible explanation for this phenomenon relies on institutional theory. Many theoretical and empirical studies, mainly based on cross-country data, emphasize the role played by institutions on the determination of long run development. Nevertheless, there still is little research concerning the income differences within the national territory and its connection to institutional quality. The literature points out that institutions matter for the level of economic development because of their effects on political power distribution, generation of economic opportunities, innovation, human capital accumulation, and so on. Based on this assumption, the present study main goal is to analyze the effects of Brazilian municipalities' institutional quality on their GDP per capita levels. The results indicate that institutions are relevant and its importance is greater for large municipalities. On the other hand, human capital human capital is more important to small municipalities. To address the endogeneity problem inherent to the relationship between institutions and development, we employ the 2SLS method.institutions, income level, brazilian municipalities

Ex-Convicts Face Multiple Labor Market Punishments: Estimates of Peer-Group and Stigma Effects Using Equations of Returns to Schooling

We produced a data set from a survey of a population of convicts in probation. We combined this new data set with an official data set from the Brazilian government to study labor market discrimination faced by ex-convicts. We were interested in estimating two potential effects of discrimination, statistical (stigma) and behavioral (peer-group) effects. Our econometric results suggest that stigmatization leads to a 39% reduction in the wage earned by ex-convicts relative to the wage earned by non-convicts. They also suggest that the peer-group effect accounts for a reduction in the relative earnings of ex-convicts of 1.1% per year of study. In addition, we also show that ex-convicts earn 3.1% less per year of experience than non-convicts.Stigma Effect, Peer Effect, Crime Rate, Returns to Schooling, Wage Discrimination

The “Price Puzzle” under Changing Monetary Policy Regimes

This paper examines the “price puzzle”, the rise in the price level following a contractionary monetary policy shock, using monthly US data from 1960 to 2006. Deviating from the standard practice is including commodity prices to “solve the puzzle”, our benchmark VAR contains output, prices, the federal funds rate and M1 money stock, while the augmented VAR includes the 10-year long bond yield. Splitting the sample at October of 1979, we find very contrasting patterns and rationalize them under the changing relationship between money and the funds rate across periods. First, the price puzzle is confined to the pre-Volcker period. Second, in the pre-Volcker period the funds rate respond largely to their own shocks, while the post-Volcker period witnesses a larger role for output fluctuations. Third, positive output shocks are more recently followed by price increases, federal funds hikes, and monetary contractions, very much con-sistent with the “Taylor rule”. Fourth, the “monetarist experiment” of late 1979-1982 reinforces our basic results: the more explicit the reliance on money supply, the less visible the price puzzle becomes

A crise internacional: reflexões e discussões

Este artigo relata minha visão sobre os principais determinantes da crise financeira atual. O artigo também expõe argumentos contra a atual maneira que os governos têm intervido no mercado, ressaltando a participação original do governo (e não dos mercados) em gerar a crise. Questões como a estatização do sistema financeiro e a ajuda a empresas com dificuldade também são discutidas

INEQUALITY AND CRIMINALITY REVISITED: FURTHER EVIDENCE FROM BRAZIL

The objective of this study is to shed light on the determinants of criminality in Brazil. In order to undertake it we performed an econometric model based in panel data analysis for Brazilian states: Among the major conclusions we have an important result that income inequality plays an important role in criminality. Results also showed that unemployment and urbanization are positively related to crime factors. Based in panel data GMM methodology we found the existence of "inertial effect" on criminality. Panel data GMM estimator was also used to control the existence of endogeneity related to the variable public security. In this case, the results showed that public security spending is effective to diminishes criminality. Contrary to the common wisdom, we cannot found evidence that poverty increases violent crime. Finally considering the results from the Granger causality tests, it was possible to show that inequality causes crime in fact and not the contrary, what supports that the income inequality in an inequivocous determinant of criminality.