Resumo em Inglês:

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.

Resumo em Inglês:

Several countries experienced an increase in female labor participation during the twentieth century. Even so, few can be proud of the conditions female workers faced. This paper analyzes the occupational distribution by gender from 1978 to in 2007 in Brazil. It shows that women have penetrated traditionally male occupations to a certain extent, but that traditionally female occupations have maintained their gender composition over the past 30 years. We also provide a regression analysis with an Oaxaca decomposition that shows that the gender wage gap is lower than in 1978, but that it has remained constant over the last decade.

Resumo em Inglês:

The paper studies the frequency of price changes from a survey data on Brazilian companies. The data set has the advantage of including all of the economic sectors: agricultural and food products, trading, industry and services. Strong evidence of nominal price rigidities is found on the data with average and median price durations around 10.1 and 8.1 months, which is very close to results reported for the euro area and the United States. Using econometric modeling through an ordered probit and also an OLS regression, we find that price change duration is mostly explained by the wage duration, the degree of competition, product specialization, the elasticity of demand and economic sector dummies. The empirical results refute somewhat commonly used macroeconomic modeling for monetary policy evaluation; however they do not refute time-dependent models since those are consistent with different price durations across firms. These results shed light on some stylized facts that a macroeconomic price-setting model would need to reproduce.

Resumo em Inglês:

We examine the foundations of corruption perception at the micro-level. Using micro and macro data, we focus on the incidence of personal characteristics and country effects. We extend previous researches by estimating sub-models taking into account differences in the countries of residence. Our database comes from the 2004 International Social Survey Program survey that includes more than 35 countries. Ordered probit models were estimated in order to study the impact of independent variables on the perceived level of corruption. This article argues that there are socio-demographic variables that play a relevant role in determining corruption perception (such as: gender, education, etc.). We find that country of residence matters and the model shows some relevant patters of behavior. Finally, we find a strong relationship between our ranking of countries and the Corruption Perception Index computed by Transparency International.

Resumo em Inglês:

This paper provides evidence about the nominal wage determinants in Spain during the period 1980-2000. We estimate a wage equation, using time series analysis applying an error correction mechanism. Our aim is to analyse the extent to which the evolution of wages is influenced by the unemployment, prices and productivity. The results reveal that the unemployment rate has no effect on the evolution of nominal wages. The variable that explains the evolution of nominal wages in the long term is prices, showing slightly inflationary behaviour. In the short term, wages are explained by their past values, reflecting a nominal inertia.

Resumo em Português:

O objetivo deste artigo é quantificar a relação entre os investimentos público e privado durante o período 1991-2004. Os resultados obtidos confirmam, para o Brasil e seus Estados, a existência de uma forte relação de complementaridade entre os dois tipos de investimento, sendo que as estimativas variam entre (0,740) e (1,135). Somente no caso dos estados de Alagoas, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Pernambuco e Sergipe as elasticidades são relativamente baixas, variando entre (0,447) e (0,668).

Resumo em Inglês:

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the relationship between public and private investment during the period 1991-2004. The results indicate the existence of strength complementarity's relationship between both type of investments, both for Brazil and its States, with the estimative ranging between (0,740) and (1,135). Only for the states of Alagoas, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Pernambuco and Sergipe the elasticity are relatively low, ranging from (0,447) to (0,668).

Resumo em Português:

No Brasil sempre se discute sobre o número de representantes na Câmara Federal, com indicações de sub ou sobre-representatividade. Esta discussão tem valor político e econômico, pois uma parcela dos recursos públicos é definida nesta instância, sendo influenciada pelo efetivo poder estadual, que pode ser mensurado pelo índice de Banzhaf. Uma proposta, sugerida por Penrose, é analisada para as UF's e regiões brasileiras. A aplicação mostra que, tanto para o atual sistema quanto para o proposto, a região Sudeste é a mais favorecida. Em relação aos Estados, os mais desenvolvidos e populosos possuem maior poder de voto em ambas situações.

Resumo em Inglês:

In Brazil there are always discussions about the number of representatives in the Federal Camera, with indications of sub or super representativeness. This discussion has political and economic value because an amount of the public resources is defined in this body and it can be linked to the effective power of the states, which can be measured by the Banzhaf index. A proposal, suggested by Penrose, is analyzed for Brazilian States and Regions. Application shows that, for the current as for the Penrose system, the most favored region is the Southeast. From the viewpoint of States, it is noticed that are those more developed and populous that possess larger voting power in both situations.

Resumo em Português:

O objetivo desta nota é alertar os leitores para um erro comum na literatura macroeconômica aplicada ao Brasil, associado à identificação de modelos VAR com base nos resultados de testes de causalidade de Granger.

Resumo em Inglês:

In this note, we call attention to a popular mistake in the applied macroeconomics literature in Brazil - namely, the identification of VAR models based on the results of Granger causality tests.