Equity and Efficiency in Education: motivations and targets

The recently released "Educational PAC" attempts to place basic education at the center of the social debate. We have subsidized this debate, offering a diagnosis of how different education levels can impact individuals' lives through broad and easily interpreted indicators. Initially, we analyze how much each educational level reaches the poorest population. For example, how are those in the bottom strata of income distribution benefited by childcare centers, private secondary education, public university or adult education. The next step is to quantify the return of educational actions, such as their effects on employability and an individual's wages, and even health as perceived by the individual, be that individual poor, middle class or elite. The next part of the research presents evidence of how the main characters in education, aka mothers, fathers and children, regard education. The site available with the research presents a broad, user-friendly database, which will allow interested parties to answer their own questions relative to why people do not attend school, the time spent in the educational system and returns to education, which can all be cross-sectioned with a wide array of socio-demographic attributes (gender, income, etc.) and school characteristics (is it public, are school meals offered, etc.) to find answers to: why do young adults of a certain age not attend school? Why do they miss classes? How long is the school day? Aside from the whys and hows of teaching, the research calculates the amount of time spent in school, resulting from a combination between absence rates, evasion raters and length of the school day. The study presents ranks of indicators referring to objective and subjective aspects of education, such as the discussion of the advantages and care in establishing performance based incentives that aim at guiding the states in the race for better educational indicators.

Reconstruindo o estado: gestão de organizações e serviços públicos em processo de mudança

This study is a gathering and analysis of the main proposals and initiatives of Public Reform in Brazil, in a specific social area: the Education sector. The research considered the period that goes from the beginning of the 80's to the first half of the 90's, with special emphasis to the role of management in the sector's reform. The debate over the Education Reform was centered on the more general theories of the Government's reform, related on the one hand to the functions and size of Government, and on the other hand, to the management of the governmental policies. Two distinct moments were identified in the period considered, with respect to the role of Education and the priorities of the sector's reform. In a first moment, between the beginning of the 80's and the new Constitution, Education was seen as a citizen's right. In a second moment, the qualification for work was also added, as a condition for Brazil's entering a new international order. As to priorities, the emphasis was in the democratization of management and decision making processes, in the 80's. From the end of the decade on, and through the 90's, besides the democratization theme, emphasis was given to modernization of the decision making processes and management. The interaction between democratization and modernization became one of the biggest challenges for the sector's reform, and is a condition for Government to enhance quality and equity in education.

Extreme observations and diversification in Latin American emerging equity markets

In this paper, we focus on the tails of the unconditional distribution of Latin American emerging markets stock returns. We explore their implications for portfolio diversification according to the safety tirst principIe, tirst proposed by Roy (1952). We tind that the Latin American emerging markets have signiticantly fatter tails than industrial markets. especially, the lower tail of the distrihution. We consider the implication of the safety tirst principIe for a U .S. investor who creates a diversitied portfolio using Latin American stock markets. We tind that a U.S. investor gains by adding Latin American equity markets to her purely domestic portfolio. For different parameter specitications. we finu a more realistic asset allocation than the one suggested by the Iiterature haseu on the traditional mean-variance framework.

Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in Brazil through private equity and venture capital public policies

It is well documented the positive impact of the Private Equity and Venture Capital (PE/VC) industry on the creation and development of highly successful innovative companies in a few countries, mainly in the United States. PE/VC firms provide not only capital to startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that usually have financing gap, especially in emerging markets, but also strategic resources that enable these enterprises to commercialize innovation. As consequence, government incentive and nurture of local PE/VC industries would be expected in emerging economies due to innovation‟s importance to economic growth. This paper aims to identify if the Brazilian government has supported local PE/VC industry throughout the years in order to foster favorable conditions to creating and developing successful innovative businesses. It also analyzes Brazil‟s main public policies towards PE/VC and if they encompass all the three stages of its cycle – fundraising, investing and exiting. I conducted an empirical research which collected primary data from a sample of 127 PE/VC firms (90% of the population) operating in Brazil as of June, 2008. All firms answered a webbased questionnaire that collected quantitative data regarding their investment vehicles, portfolio companies, investments and exits. I compared the data obtained from the survey with the main local governmental PE/VC support programs. First, I confirmed the hypothesis that the Brazilian government has been using the PE/VC industry as a public policy towards entrepreneurship and innovation. Second, I identified that although PE/VC public policies in Brazil are mostly concentrated in fundraising phase, they have been able to positively impact the whole cycle. Third, it became clear that the Brazilian government became more concerned about Seed and Venture Capital (VC) Early stages due to their importance to the entire PE/VC value chain. As consequence, I conclude that those public policies have been very important to build a dynamic and strong local PE/VC industry, whose committed capital grew 50% per year between 2005 and 2008 to achieve US$27 billion, which invested US$ 11 billion, which employs 1,400 professionals (75% with postgraduate degrees) and maintains 482 portfolio companies, mostly SMEs. In addition, PE/VCbacked companies represented one third of the Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) that occurred in Brazil between 2004 and 2008 (approximately US$15 billion).

Toward convergence? The brazilian stock market concentration and the role of private equity in its diversification

Using quantitative data obtained from public available database, this paper discusses the difference between of the Brazilian GDP and the Brazilian Stock Exchange industry breakdown. I examined if, and to what extent, the industry breakdowns are similar. First, I found out that the Stock Exchange industry breakdown is overwhelming different from the GDP, which may present a potential problem to asset allocation and portfolio diversification in Brazil. Second, I identified an important evidence of a convergence between the GDP and the Stock Exchange in the last 9 years. Third, it became clear that the Privatizations in the late 90’s and IPO market from 2004 to 2008 change the dynamics of the Brazilian Stock Exchange. And fourth, I identified that Private Equity and Venture Capital industry may play an important role on the portfolio diversification in Brazil.

Defining student participation and empowerment in higher education

Customer participation has been studied for decades; however, it gained a postmodern perspective around the year 2000. Customers have become co-creators of personalized experiences, moving from the audience to the stage. In the educational context, students must take responsibility for their learning process and participate in the production of the service. This changing is providing opportunities and challenges for higher education institutions (HEIs) to redefine their relationship with stakeholders, especially with students. This study is based on the service dominant logic (SDL) perspective because students are assumed to take the role of co-creators of knowledge in the educational setting. The research uses adapted frameworks and concepts applied in organizational, knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) and also medical studies to advance the understanding of value co-creation in the HEI context. The current study addresses a lack of research in the higher education context focusing on defining students’ participation and students’ empowerment in higher education context. An empirical investigation was developed with traditional schools in Brazil. This investigation allowed the description of the constructs in the specific context. The description of student participation in HEIs context reflects the relevance of three dimensions – information sharing, personal interaction and responsible behavior. In the Brazilian context, responsible behavior is the weakest dimension in the construct, because the responsibilities are unbalanced between students and professors. The main reasons identified for this unbalanced relation were cultural issues and local regulation. Student empowerment was described as composed by four dimensions – meaningfulness, competence, impact and choice; however, one of them – choice – was identified as the weakest dimension, facing cultural and bureaucratic barriers for implementation in the Brazilian educational context. Moreover, interviewees spontaneously cited the idea of trust in the faculty as an important antecedent of student participation that must be considered when analyzing student participation and empowerment mechanisms. An additional contribution was the proposal of a theory-based framework for understanding the service dominant logic perspective in the HEI context, in which student participation and student empowerment were explored as mechanisms leading to positive student behavior toward institution.