Education, preferences for leisure, and the optimal income tax schedule

Recent advances in dynamic Mirrlees economies have incorporated the treatment of human capital investments as an important dimension of government policy. This paper adds to this literature by considering a two period economy where agents are di erentiated by their preferences for leisure and their productivity, both private information. The fact that productivity is only learnt later in an agent's life introduces uncertainty to agent's savings and human capital choices and makes optimal the use of multi-period tie-ins in the mechanism that characterizes the government policy. We show that optimal policies are often interim ine cient and that the introduction of these ine ciencies may take the form of marginal tax rates on labor income of varying sign and educational policies that include the discouragement of human capital acquisition. With regards to implementation, state-dependent linear taxes implement optimal savings, while human capital policies may require labor income taxes that depend directly on agents' schooling.

Indústria de transformação brasileira: análise do progresso tecnológico e dos determinantes de sua disseminação

Este estudo utiliza o modelo de fronteira estocástica paramétrica com dados em painel para estimação das funções de produção asso- ciadas aos grupos da indústria de transfomação brasileira no período de 1996-2005. Um ponto importante dessa técnica é a possibilidade de utilização de um conjunto de variáveis explicativas para o com- ponente de ine ciência. Com o objetivo de captar as dinâmicas da fronteira tecnológica e do nível de ine ciência foram introduzidos com- ponentes de tendência linear e quadrática. Veri cou-se para o período a ocorrência de aumento do nível de ine ciência técnica e de progresso tecnológico a taxas constantes. Observou-se ainda que o nível de ine - ciência relaciona-se negativamente com os salários médios do pessoal direta e indiretamente ligado à produção, com o percentual de tributos sobre a receita total ,com o grau de terceirização e com o percentual da receita total originário da atividade principal da indústria.

Transformação estrutural na América Latina

I investigate the role of sectoral di¤erences in labor productivity and the process of structural transformation (reallocation of labor across sectors) in accounting for the time path of aggregate productivity across six Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela) during the period from 1950 to 2003. Although they have started the process of structural transformation in di¤erent times, all of them went through a common process. I consider a simple three-sector-model of structural transformation and calibrate it to the experience of the six latin american economies. I use the model to measure sectoral labor productivity di¤erences between these countries and the United States. I have found that the services sector can explain the recent decrease of labor productivity in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, after these countries had gone through a catch up in relative productivity (considering the United States as a benchmark) during the period from 1950 to 1980. Among Latin American economies, only the Chilean one has been catching up in relative productivity from 1980 to the present. There are some cases like Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela that the ine¢ ciency of all sectors was responsible for the failure in reducing the gap of productivity in relation to the United States during the last years of the sample.