Os efeitos de sistema de registro de preço nas compras públicas: estudo de caso da Secretaria Municipal de Obras, Serviços Básicos e Habitação da cidade de Manaus

Public administration has been labeled as inefficient for decades, with society seen it as a great waste of public money with a low generation of results. Its services are notably classified as sluggish, bureaucratic, with a low productivity level and a high incidence of mistakes. In periods of crisis, public administration must be the first to give good examples of balance and parsimony in its expenditures, or it could lead to the failure of the government, in general, causing damages to the population. To reach this goal, some corrective measures must be done, in different directions, by selecting the expenditures and fostering the maximum economy for the exchequer. This is only possible through the application of correct planning techniques, a still far way reality from the culture of our public organisms. One way to this change is the adoption of the Price Registration System, that in the Federal scope was already adopted by the Decree nº 3.931/01, and in the scope of the municipality of Manaus was ordered by the Decree nº 8.270/06. The present study verifies the influence of the use of the Price Registration System in purchases and contracts undertaken by the Local Secretariat of Construction, Basic Services and Housing, in the city of Manaus concerning the economy obtained when compared to other methods of tenders.

Environmental regulation, technology adoption and structural transformation: evidence from Brazilian sugarcane industry

We estimate the effects of the adoption of mechanized agriculture led by a new environmental regulation on structural change of local labor markets within a large emerging country, Brazil. In 2002, the state of S\~{a}o Paulo passed a law outlying the timeline to end sugarcane pre-harvest burning in the state. The environmental law led to the fast adoption of mechanized harvest. We investigate if the labor intensity of sugarcane production decreases; and, if so, if it leads to structural changes in the labor market. We use satellite data containing the type of sugarcane harvesting -- manual or mechanic harvest -- paired with official labor market data.%, also geomorphometric data base for our instrumental variable correction. We find suggestive evidence that mechanization of the field led to an increase in utilization of formal workers and a reduction in formal labor intensity in the sugarcane sector. This is partially compensated by an increase in the share of workers in other agricultural crops and in the construction and services sector. Although we find a reduction in employment in the manufacturing sector, the demand generated by the new agro-industries affected positively the all sectors via an increase in workers' wage.