Sustentabilidade e Desenvolvimento Local: Estudo de Projeto na Formação da Ecovila Viver Simples em Itamonte - MG

Eco-villages are considered models of intentional communities or sustainable communities and have been incorporated by the United Nations in the Sustainable Communities Development Programme (SCDP) as a human scale settlement. They are characterized by human activities being integrated in a non-damaging way into the natural world in such a way as to give support to healthy human development so as to be able to continue indefinitely into the future. This text assesses the extent to which a project to create the Eco-village for Simple Living in Itamonte - Minas Gerais" is successful, based on the concepts of sustainability and local development succeeds, by examining the indicators and attributes that are able to be measured in the planning phase, describing the stages and discussions of the project, as well as assessing the members 'perception of "the concepts of the Eco-village", "sustainability" and "local development". Subsequent analysis of the degree of sustainability (ecological, social, economic, spacial and cultural / spiritual) and local development, based on the social economy, demonstrated the presence of a number of aspects used to support, guide, discuss, plan and implement actions in the creation of the Eco-village being studied. This work could be used as a guide to Eco-villages during the planning phase, indicating the importance of the concepts studied, especially for some communities which are self-proclaimed "Eco-villages" but which in fact do not show even the slightest structural aspects which would describe them as such, like solidarity in the relations between participants, or construction oriented with a view to the precepts of environmental preservation. "

A dupla conversão: do ideal socialista ao estatismo e deste ao capitalismo

Trabalho preparado para número especial da Revista de Estudos Avançados da USP, dezembro de 2009.

Constructing coincident and leading indices of economic activity for the brazilian economy

This paper has three original contributions. The first is the reconstruction effort of the series of employment and income to allow the creation of a new coincident index for the Brazilian economic activity. The second is the construction of a coincident index of the economic activity for Brazil, and from it, (re)establish a chronology of recessions in the recent past of the Brazilian economy. The coincident index follows the methodology proposed by TCB and it covers the period 1980:1 to 2007:11. The third is the construction and evaluation of many leading indicators of economic activity for Brazil which fills an important gap in the Brazilian Business Cycles literature.

The political economy of exchange rate policy in Brazil: 1964-1999

This paper was developed as part of a broader research program on the political economy of exchange rate policies in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are grateful for helpful comments and suggestions from Jeff Frieden, Ernesto Stein, Jorge Streb, Marcelo Neri and seminar participants at Getulio Vargas Foundation, PUC-Rio, IDB workshop on The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, and LACEA meeting in Buenos Aires. We thank René Garcia for providing us with a Fortran program for estimating the Markov Switching Model, Ilan Goldfajn for sending us updated estimates of the real exchange rate series of Goldfajn and Valdés (1996), Altamir Lopes and Ricardo Markwald for kindly furnishing data on Brazilian external accounts, and Carla Bernardes, Gabriela Domingues, Juliana Pessoa de Araújo, and, specially, Marcelo Pinheiro for excellent research assistant. Both authors thank CNPq for a research fellowship.

Constructing coincident and leading indices of economic activity for the brazilian economy

This paper has three original contributions. The first is the reconstruction effort of the series of employment and income to allow the creation of a new coincident index for the Brazilian economic activity. The second is the construction of a coincident index of the economic activity for Brazil, and from it, (re) establish a chronology of recessions in the recent past of the Brazilian economy. The coincident index follows the methodology proposed by The Conference Board (TCB) and it covers the period 1980:1 to 2007:11. The third is the construction and evaluation of many leading indicators of economic activity for Brazil which fills an important gap in the Brazilian Business Cycles literature.

Constructing coincident and leading indices of economic activity for the Brazilian economy

This paper has three original contributions. The fi rst is the reconstruction effort of the series of employment and income to allow the creation of a new coincident index for the Brazilian economic activity. The second is the construction of a coincident index of the economic activity for Brazil, and from it, (re) establish a chronology of recessions in the recent past of the Brazilian economy. The coincident index follows the methodology proposed by The Conference Board (TCB) and it covers the period 1980:1 to 2007:11. The third is the construction and evaluation of many leading indicators of economic activity for Brazil which fills an important gap in the Brazilian Business-Cycle literature.

Informal wages in an economy with active labor courts

In most developing countries, job regulations and the justice branch interfere on several aspects of labor contracts. Inspired by this fact, we build a model that explores the role of labor courts in the determination of the di¤erence between formal and informal wages. We show that the presence of active labor courts in an environment where labor relations are subject to asymmetries of information reproduces features documented by the empirical literature. The main implications of our model are tested using Brazilian data.

Fiscal multipliers in an incomplete markets economy

This paper studies the behavior of fiscal multipliers in two different economic environments: complete markets and incomplete markets. Based on steady state analysis, output multipliers are found within a range between 0.49 and 0.66, when the markets are complete. Under incomplete markets, output multiplier was found in an interval between 0.75 and 0.94. These results indicates that the market structure, which reflects the degree of risk sharing and the intensity of the precautionary motive faced by individuals, plays a key role in determining the fiscal multipliers. In the second part of the paper, was performed an exercise to analyze the dynamic response of macroeconomic aggregates to an exogenous and unexpected rise in government spending financed by lump-sum taxes. In this case, impact output multipliers varies in a range between 0.64 and 0.68, under complete markets, and within 1.05 and 1.20 when markets are incomplete. The results found under incomplete markets are very close to that found on related literature which usually uses an econometric approach or calibrated/estimated New Keynesian models. These results shows that taking into account the deficiencies in the insurance mechanisms can be an interesting way to reconcile theoretical models with the results found on related current literature, without the need of ad-hoc assumptions relative to price stickness.

The effects of commodity dependence on the brazilian economy: a test of the dutch disease hypothesis

A doença holandesa tornou-se amplamente conhecida na década de 1960, quando a descoberta repentina de reservatórios de gás natural em território holandês, na região do mar do norte, transformou o país em uma economia rica em recursos. A desagradável consequência que proveio da recém-adquirida abundância de commodities foi o declínio da próspera indústria holandesa, que perdeu sua competitividade devido à valorização do florim holandês, como consequência do aumento do influxo de capital estrangeiro no país. Desde então este fenômeno tem sido observado em diversos países que possuem abundância de commodities. O objetivo desta tese é aplicar o modelo da doença holandesa ao Brasil, já que a maior economia da América latina poderá também ter de encarar a ameaça de se tornar prisioneira da “armadilha das commodities”, devido à sua abundância de recursos naturais. O autor revisa a bibliografia básica abordando o tema geral da doença holandesa e dá enfoque a estudos realizados anteriormente no Brasil. Além disso, os quatro maiores sintomas que caracterizam a doença holandesa são testados: (1) valorização das taxas de câmbio do real, (2) declínio do setor industrial, (3) crescimento do setor de serviços, e (4) aumento dos salários. Todos estes sintomas foram observados e podem ser comprovados através das abordagens de cointegração ou de correlação, com exceção do sintoma número dois. Ainda que estes resultados sejam significativos, há muito outros fatores determinantes que influenciam o desenvolvimento dos sintomas examinados, motivo pelo qual futuros estudos serão necessários para se obtiver conclusões definitivas sobre como o Brasil é afetado pela doença holandesa.

Cinema attendance during crises is there a relationship between cinema attendance and the state of the economy in France in the period 1992-2012?

O presente estudo teve como objetivo testar se a situação econômica teve um impacto sobre os hábitos de consumo de cinema na França, no período contemporâneo (1992-2012). O estudo aborda a relação entre indicadores econômicos e consumo de cinema em um nível agregado e, em seguida, analisa se os vários tipos de filmes, tipos de cinemas e categorias de cinéfilos foram mais ou menos foram afetados pelo estado da economia. No nível agregado, estudos semelhantes já foram realizados em outros países. Este estudo confirma os resultados para a França: como em outros países desenvolvidos, a situação da economia tem pouca influência no consumo de cinema e o setor é resiliente. Este trabalho também traz novas análises detalhadas sobre o comportamento de vários sub-tipos de filmes, segmentos de locais e categorias de consumidores. Ele demonstra que para a maior parte dessas sub-categorias, drivers do mercado são oferta e preço, e que a situação da economia tem pouca influência. Quanto ao tipo de cinema, o estudo argumenta que, comparativamente, cinemas grandes conseguem crescer durante o período de crise.

Infrastructure privatization in a neoclassical economy: macroeconomic impact and welfare computation

In this paper a competi tive general equilibrium model is used to investigate the welfare and long run allocation impacts of privatization. There are two types of capital in this model economy, one private and the other initially public ("infrastructure"), and a positive extemality due to the latter is assumed. A benevolent governrnent can improve upon decentralized allocation intemalizing the extemality, but it introduces distortions in the economy through the finance of its investments. It is shown that even making the best case for public action - maximization of individuais' welfare, no operation inefficiency and free supply to society of infrastructure services - privatization is welfare improving for a large set of economies. Hence, arguments against privatization based solely on under-investment are incorrect, as this maybe the optimal action when the financing of public investment are considered. When operation inefficiency is introduced in the public sector, gains from privatization are much higher and positive for most reasonable combinations of parameters.

Endogenous cycles in a Stiglitz-Weiss economy

The literature on financiaI imperfections and business cycles has focused on propagation mechanisms. In this pape r we model apure reversion mechanism, such that the economy may converge to a two period equilibrium cycle. This mechanism confirms that financiaI imperfections may have a dramatic amplification effect. Unlike in some related models, contracts are complete. Indexation is not assumed away. The welfare properties of a possible stabilizing policy are analyzed. The model i tself is a dynamic extension of the well-known Stigli tz-Weiss model of lending under moral hazard. Although stylized the model still captures some important features of credit cycles.