As conferências nacionais de política para as mulheres e os sentidos atribuídos á deliberação

Esta dissertação tem como problema de pesquisa analisar o perfil normativo das Conferências Nacionais de Política para Mulheres a partir dos sentidos atribuídos à deliberação pelas representantes governamentais e não governamentais que organizaram e/ou participaram desses processos de Conferências, entrevistadas para esta pesquisa. A relevância do problema se dá pelo diagnóstico de que o perfil dessas Conferências, marcado por discursos históricos que buscam firmar o compromisso político do governo federal com a Política para as mulheres, não está claro, por um lado. Mas também se justifica pelos debates em torno de propostas de Sistemas de Participação que buscam trabalhar com a complementaridade de modelos de democracia, por outro. No arcabouço teórico está a noção de “momentos deliberativos” presente na literatura brasileira sobre efetividade da participação e as noções jurídicas de ato administrativo discricionário e vinculativo presentes no ramo do Direito Administrativo, como tentativas de compreender o perfil a partir das categorias analíticas consultiva e deliberativa presentes na literatura brasileira sobre participação. As categorias, contudo, se mostram limitadas para se compreender os diversos sentidos da deliberação que indicariam seu perfil.

Evidence on the incentive optimality of share contracts

Ever since Adam Smith, economists have argued that share contracts do not provide proper incentives. This paper uses tenancy data from India to assess the existence of missing incentives in this classical example of moral hazard. Sharecroppers are found to be less productive than owners, but as productive as fixed-rent tenants. Also, the productivity gap between owners and both types of tenants is driven by sample-selection issues. An endogenous selection rule matches tenancy contracts with less-skilled farmers and lower-quality lands. Due to complementarity, such a matching affects tenants’ input choices. Controlling for that, the contract form has no effect on the expected output. Next, I explicitly model farmer’s optimal decisions to test the existence of non-contractible inputs being misused. No evidence of missing incentives is found.

Essays on economic growth

A fundamental question in development economics is why some economies are rich and others poor. To illustrate the income per capita gap across economies consider that the average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of the richest 10 percent of economies in the year 2010 was a factor of 40-fold that of the poorest 10 percent of economies. In other words, the average person in a rich economy produces in just over 9 days what the average person in a poor economy produces in an entire year. What are the factors that can explain this difference in standard of living across the world today? With this in view, this dissertation is a conjunction of three essays on the economic growth field which we seek a possible responses to this question. The first essay investigates the existence of resource misallocation in the Brazilian manufacturing sector and measures possible distortions in it. Using a similar method of measurement to the one developed by Hsieh and Klenow (2009) and firm-level data for 1996-2011 we find evidence of misallocation in the manufacturing sector during the observed period. Moreover, our results show that misallocation has been growing since 2005, and it presents a non-smooth dynamic. Significantly, we find that the Brazilian manufacturing sector operates at about 50% of its efficient product. With this, if capital and labor were optimally reallocated between firms and sectors we would obtain an aggregate output growth of approximately 110-180% depending on the mode in which the capital share is measured. We also find that the economic crisis did not have a substantial effect on the total productivity factor or on the sector's misallocation. However, small firms in particular seem to be strongly affected in a global crisis. Furthermore, the effects described would be attenuated if we consider linkages and complementarity effects among sectors. Despite Brazil's well-known high tax burden, there is not evidence that this is the main source of resource misallocation. Moreover, there is a distinct pattern of structural change between the manufacturing sectors in industrialized countries and those in developing countries. Therefore, the second essay demonstrate that this pattern differs because there are some factors that distort the relative prices and also affect the output productivity. For this, we present a multi-sector model of economic growth, where distortions affect the relative prices and the allocation of inputs. This phenomenon imply that change of the production structure or perpetuation of the harmful structures to the growth rate of aggregate output. We also demonstrate that in an environment with majority decision, this distortion can be enhanced and depends on the initial distribution of firms. Furthermore, distortions in relative prices would lead to increases in the degree of misallocation of resources, and that imply that there are distinct patterns of structural changes between economies. Finally, the calibrated results of the framework developed here converge with the structural change observed in the firm-level data of the Brazilian manufacturing sector. Thereafter, using a cross-industry cross-country approach, the third essay investigates the existence of an optimal level of competition to enhance economic growth. With that in mind, we try to show that this optimal level is different from industrialized and under development economies due to the technology frontier distance, the terms of trade, and each economy's idiosyncratic characteristics. Therefore, the difference in competition industry-country level is a channel to explain the output for worker gap between countries. The theoretical and empirical results imply the existence of an inverted-U relationship between competition and growth: starting for an initially low level of competition, higher competition stimulates innovation and output growth; starting from a high initial level of competition, higher competition has a negative effect on innovation and output growth. Given on average industries in industrialized economies present higher competition level. With that if we control for the terms of trade and the industry-country fixed effect, if the industries of the developing economy operated under the same competition levels as of the industrialized ones, there is a potential increase of output of 0.2-1.0% per year. This effect on the output growth rate depends on the competition measurement used.

Planejamento e gestão estratégicos na administração pública municipal no Brasil

Apesar de sua complementariedade, as práticas de planejamento estratégico e de busca pela qualidade do serviço e da gestão pública tem recebido ênfase alternada ao longo da história política brasileira, acompanhando percepções acerca do papel do Estado. Na administração municipal adquirem especial relevância e complexidade dado histórico de expansão urbana pouco planejada, grande concentração populacional nessas áreas e necessidade de integração de uma série de instrumentos e diretrizes propostos pela Constituição de 1988 e pelo Estatuto da Cidade. O presente trabalho visa sistematizar o histórico desses debates no Brasil, sem pretensão de aprofundamento, e apresentar breves contribuições sobre a situação atual do planejamento e gestão nos municípios.

Strategic outsourcing? : the Philips case in the LCD TV market

This work seeks to assess the outsourcing process adopted by Philips for producing LCD televisions. The authors used the Resource-based Theory and the Transaction Cost Theory for analyzing the case. Based on industry data and interviews with ten of the company’s senior executives, this study sought to understand how the decision making process was carried out and how it affected the company’s activities in the field of LCD televisions. Philips has lost its competitiveness in the Brazilian market – it went from being the leader in 2006 to fourth place in 2009, both as far as regards its sales volume and value. The executives pointed out that the LCD panel is an important resource and that its supply by third parties represented a high transaction cost. The results illustrate the complementarity that exists between the RBT and TCT theories in a competitive environment that has few players.