The experience of semi-formal infrastructure finance in developing countries: proposals for Brazil and Latin America

This paper has the purpose of analyzing the role of civil society in funding and providing nfrastructure projects in developing countries. Considering that local associations around the world have been directly engaged on some infrastructure projects – some scholars define it as “semi-formal finance” –, the intention is to demonstrate that the experiences on such arrangements in developing countries have been responsible for fostering infrastructure investments in the poorer regions where the government is more absent. Based upon legal, economic and social aspects, this paper aims to contribute to a broader debate for the development of infrastructure in emerging countries. The conclusion is that, under a more social approach, the legal and economic mechanisms in developing countries are able to consider such arrangements in the benefit of their development.

Labor legislation and the size of informal sector in Brazil

This paper studies the increase in the rate of informal workers in the Brazilian economy that occurred between 1985 and 1999. We develop an overlapping generations model with incomplete markets in which agents are ex-post heterogeneous. We calibrate it to match some features of the Brazilian economy for 1985. We conduct a policy experiment which reproduces the 1988 constitution reforms that increased the retirement benefits and labor costs in the formal sector. We show that these reforms can explain the increase in informal labor. Then, we conduct a policy experiment and analyze its impact on the Brazilian economy.

Segmentation in the brazilian labor market

This paper measures the degree of segmentation in the brazilian labor market. Controlling for observable and unobservable characteristics, workers earn more in the formal sector, which supports the segmentation hypothesis. We break down the degree of segmentation by socio-economic attributes to identify the groups where this phenomenon is more prevalent. We investigate the robustness of our findings to the inclusion of self-employed individuals, and apply a two-stage panel probit model using the self-selection correction strategy to investigate a potential weakness of the fixed-effects estimator

Precariedade e precarização do mercado de trabalho brasileiro

Nos últimos anos, a taxa de desemprego no Brasil tem-se mantido relativamente estável. No entanto, assistimos a uma redução do emprego no mercado de trabalho formal concomitante a um crescimento do mercado informal. Esta mudança tem sido identificada com uma piora de qualidade, ou precarização, do emprego, já que este, no mercado informal, é tido como de baixa qualidade. Nesta pesquisa, procuramos investigar a dimensão desta precarização analisando a qualidade dos postos de trabalho que estão sendo eliminados no mercado de trabalho formal. O que se observa é que a qualidade dos postos de trabalho neste mercado é bastante heterogênea, e há evidência de que a redução do emprego que está ocorrendo se dá, principalmente na indústria, nos postos de baixa qualidade. Assim, o fenômeno não se caracteriza pela eliminação dos postos de qualidade, mas pela transferência dos de baixa qualidade para o mercado informal. Por sua vez, a análise do mercado informal revela também uma grande heterogeneidade entre trabalhadores que não têm carteira de trabalho assinada e trabalhadores autônomos. O emprego destes últimos tem crescido a taxas elevadas como conseqüência da terceirização. O aumento da força de trabalho no mercado informal, por outro lado, coloca novas questões para as políticas públicas, que também são investigadas neste trabalho.

O Papel das cooperativas de trabalho no contexto das transformações da sociedade brasileira: um estudo do caso no Município do Rio de Janeiro

The changes that have occurred in the Brazilian work market, mainly due to the opening of the economy in the 90th decade, have caused, as a consequence, the unemployment in the formal sector, with the reduction of posts of work in the industry and the precarization of the laborwork. In order to face these questions, it¿s necessary an analysis of the alternative measures, among them, the creation of the cooperative societies, which have increased about 90,8% in the last years. The purpose of this study is to identify and to analyze the functions of the work cooperatives, just in face of the changes of the Brazilian society. The analysis was directed towards a group of eight work cooperatives that work in lots of areas of professionals in the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro. The study reveals the existence of false work cooperatives, whose sole purpose is to intermediate the handiwork with the intention of benefiting enterprises that intend to decrease their own costs of production, just contributing for the precarization of the relations of work. The structure of the Judicial Power offers solutions that protect the workers who are exploited through fraudulent actions, by the false cooperatives, handiworkers. It can be noticed that this structure is enough to answer the challenges presented. It means that it is too bad to apprehend the revival of the work cooperativism and that it must be combated. Of course, it is maniqueist conception that distorts reality and disdains positive aspects of cooperative system. The results of the search have permitted to point out the main characteristics of the work cooperatives analyzed, the profile of the cooperative workers, and also the main obstacles to the development of the cooperative system in Brazil today . A long the analysis of tributary and labor questions and about the participation of the cooperative workers in the management of the cooperative - the most questionable points - it could be observed the development of real cooperative practices, trying to establish the differences between these and the fraudulent ones, also studied in this work. This study represents a contribution to all those who intend to study new relations of work in a critical away and from experiences in development.

Efeitos informais do salário mínimo e pobreza

Avaliamos a efetividade da política de salário mínimo nacional nos segmentos formais e informais do mercado de trabalho brasileiro. A nossa técnica consiste em mapear soluções de canto produzidas pela política de salário mínimo que são posteriormente utilizados como mecanismo de focalização na simulação de limites superiores dos efeitos de reajustes do salário mínimo sobre medidas de pobreza no Brasil. Destacamos dois “efeitos informais” do mínimo: i) a alta porcentagem de trabalhadores sem carteira assinada ganhando exatamente um mínimo, o que potencializa os efeitos aliviadores de pobreza do salário mínimo; e ii) A observação de remunerações que utilizam o salário mínimo, como numerário, em particular no setor formal.

The effects of adult literacy on earnings and employment

This paper provides evidence of the effects of adult literacy on individuals’ income and employability in Brazil based on information obtained from the monthly employment survey (PME). The OLS results indicate that after controlling for observable characteristics, there is a 21.25% increase in wages for individuals who become literate; however, there is no significant impact on employability. Moreover, the findings show an 8.1% increase in the probability of being employed in the formal sector. We also explore the longitudinal structure of the dataset to control for unobservable fixed characteristics of individuals. The fixed-effects estimators show smaller effects compared to the OLS estimators. We find that literacy has a 4.4% effect on wages and a 4.3% impact on the probability of being formally employed. The effects are significantly different from zero.