Essays on incentives, procurement and regulation

Esta tese é composta de três artigos. No primeiro artigo, "Simple Contracts under Simultaneous Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard", é considerado um problema de principal-agente sob a presença simultânea dos problemas de risco moral e seleção adversa, em que a dimensão de seleção adversa se dá sobre as distribuições de probabilidade condicionais as ações do agente. No segundo artigo, "Public-Private Partnerships in the Presence of Adverse Selection" é analisada a otimalidade de parcerias público-privadas sob a presença de seleção adversa. No terceiro artigo, "Regulation Under Stock Market Information Disclosure", por sua vez, é considerado o problema da regulação de firmas de capital aberto, onde as firmas possuem incentivos para mandar sinais opostos para o regulador e o mercado.

Cálculo do subsídio implícito a agricultura, proveniente da política de preços mínimos, utilizando a teoria de "option pricing"

O objetivo desse trabalho é calcular o subsídio implícito aos produtores de arroz agulhinha, feijão preto, milho e soja, proveniente da política de preços mínimos, através da avaliação dos prêmios das opções de venda que correspondem à política de preços mínimos para essas commodities.

Tests of conditional asset pricing models in the brazilian stock market

In this paper, we test a version of the conditional CAPM with respect to a local market portfolio, proxied by the Brazilian stock index during the period 1976-1992. We also test a conditional APT modeI by using the difference between the 3-day rate (Cdb) and the overnight rate as a second factor in addition to the market portfolio in order to capture the large inflation risk present during this period. The conditional CAPM and APT models are estimated by the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and tested on a set of size portfolios created from individual securities exchanged on the Brazilian markets. The inclusion of this second factor proves to be important for the appropriate pricing of the portfolios.

The trade-off between incentives and endogenous risk

Standard models of moral hazard predict a negative relationship between risk and incentives, but the empirical work has not confirmed this prediction. In this paper, we propose a model with adverse selection followed by moral hazard, where effort and the degree of risk aversion are private information of an agent who can control the mean and the variance of profits. For a given contract, more risk-averse agents suppIy more effort in risk reduction. If the marginal utility of incentives decreases with risk aversion, more risk-averse agents prefer lower-incentive contractsj thus, in the optimal contract, incentives are positively correlated with endogenous risk. In contrast, if risk aversion is high enough, the possibility of reduction in risk makes the marginal utility of incentives increasing in risk aversion and, in this case, risk and incentives are negatively related.

Profit sharing with heterogeneous entrepreneurial prowess

This paper analyzes the impact of profit sharing on the incentives that individuals face to set up their own business. It presents a model of capital accumulation in which individuals are equally skilled to be workers but differ in their abilities to manage a firm Given an exogenous profit sharing parameter, an individual chooses whether to be an employer or an employee in order to maximize his net income. It is shown that profit sharing can inhibit entrepreneurial initiatives, reducing the number of firms in operation, the aggregate output and the economy's long run capital stock.

Monetary arrangements for emerging economies

In this paper we look at various alternatives for monetary regimes: dollarization, monetary union and local currency. We use an extension of the debt crisis model of Cole and Kehoe ([3], [4] and [5]), although we do not necessarily follow their sunspot interpretation. Our focus is to appraise the welfare of a country which is heavily dependent on international capital due to low savings, for example, and might suffer a speculative attack on its external public debt. We study the conditions under which countries will be better off adopting each one of the regimes described above. If it belongs to a monetary union or to a local currency regime, a default may be avoided by an ination tax on debt denominated in common or local currency, respectively. Under the former regime, the decision to inate depends on each member country's political inuence over the union's central bank, while, in the latter one, the country has full autonomy to decide about its monetary policy. The possibility that the government inuences the central bank to create ination tax for political reasons adversely affects the expected welfare of both regimes. Under dollarization, ination is ruled out and the country that is subject to an external debt crisis has no other option than to default. Accordingly, one of our main results is that shared ination control strengthens currencies and a common-currency regime is superior in terms of expected welfare to the local-currency one and to dollarization if external shocks that member countries suffer are strongly correlated to each other. On the other hand, dollarization is dominant if the room for political ination under the alternative regime is high. Finally, local currency is dominant if external shocks are uncorrelated and the room for political pressure is mild. We nish by comparing Brazil's and Argentina's recent experiences which resemble the dollarization and the local currency regimes, and appraising the incentives that member countries would have to unify their currencies in the following common markets: Southern Common Market, Andean Community of Nations and Central American Common Market.

Mandatory profit sharing, entrepreneurial incentives and capital accumulation

The impact of a mandatory tax on profits which is transferred to workers is analyzed in a general equilibrium entrepreneurial model. In the short run, this distortion reduces the number of firms and the aggregate output. In the long run, if capital and labor are bad substitutes, it fosters capital accumulation and increases the aggregate output. In a small open economy with free movement of capital, it improves the welfare of the economy's average individual. One concludes that the benefits of sharing schemes may go beyond the short run employment-stabilization goal focused by the profit sharing literature.

Aftermarket short covering in ipos and long-term stock liquidity

This study investigates the effect of the aftermarket short covering (ASC) carried out by the underwriter during the price stabilization period on stock long-term liquidity. Because the ASC increases liquidity during the stabilization period and liquidity is a persistent characteristic of stocks, the ASC can increase long-term liquidity. In fact, we show that the ASC has a positive effect on liquidity over the 6 months subsequent to the stabilization period. This positive relation holds true even after controlling for many variables found important to explain liquidity by previous authors and the instrumentalization of the ASC.

Modelando a volatilidade dos retornos de Petrobrás usando dados de alta frequência

O objetivo do presente trabalho é analisar as características empíricas de uma série de retornos de dados em alta freqüência para um dos ativos mais negociados na Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo. Estamos interessados em modelar a volatilidade condicional destes retornos, testando em particular a presença de memória longa, entre outros fenômenos que caracterizam este tipo de dados. Nossa investigação revela que além da memória longa, existe forte sazonalidade intradiária, mas não encontramos evidências de um fato estilizado de retornos de ações, o efeito alavancagem. Utilizamos modelos capazes de captar a memória longa na variância condicional dos retornos dessazonalizados, com resultados superiores a modelos tradicionais de memória curta, com implicações importantes para precificação de opções e de risco de mercado

The brazilian education quality index (Ideb): measurement and incentives upgrades

The increasing availability of social statistics in Latin America opens new possibilities in terms of accountability and incentive mechanisms for policy makers. This paper addresses these issues within the institutional context of the Brazilian educational system. We build a theoretical model based on the theory of incentives to analyze the role of the recently launched Basic Education Development Index (Ideb) in the provision of incentives at the sub-national level. The first result is to demonstrate that an education target system has the potential to improve the allocation of resources to education through conditional transfers to municipalities and schools. Second, we analyze the local government’s decision about how to allocate its education budget when seeking to accomplish the different objectives contemplated by the index, which involves the interaction between its two components, average proficiency and the passing rate. We discuss as well policy issues concerning the implementation of the synthetic education index in the light of this model arguing that there is room for improving the Ideb’s methodology itself. In addition, we analyze the desirable properties of an ideal education index and we argue in favor of an ex-post relative learning evaluation system for different municipalities (schools) based on the value added across different grades

The effects of tax incentives for small firms on employment levels

This paper will examine the effects of tax incentives for small businesses on employment level evaluating a program with this purpose implemented in Brazil in the 1990s. We first develop a theoretical framework which guides both the de nition of the parameters of interest and their identi cation. Selection problems both into the treatment group and into the data sample are tackled by combining fixed effects methods and regression discontinuity design on alternative sub-samples of a longitudinal database of manufacturing firms. The results show that on the one hand the size composition of the treated fi rms may be changed due to the survival of some smaller firms that would have exited had it not been eligible to the program. On the other hand, the treated firms who do not depend on the program to survive do employ more workers.

Análise do impacto das ofertas públicas iniciais sobre as empresas brasileiras: utilizando indicadores contábeis calculados a partir de evidências empíricas no Brasil

The economic estabilization that Brazil has achieved in the last years, and the increase of brazilians firms' corporate govemance levei made the brazilian's stock market an option for foreign investors. The economic's global warm made the market develop and become a finance option for brazilians firms. In the period between 2004 and 2007 were reaiized 106 IPOs in Bovespa. Using the period mentioned above, this study has as objective show the impact of IPO on brazilians firms, using multiples calculated with accounting data. The using of accounting data alows the comparison of the previous inicial pubiic offer period with the after period. In this study we have verified that the firms used the publics offers as a way of capitalization, more then 90% of used sample firms made issuance of shares. This fact made it possible a reduction of leverage and an increase of firms net operating results after IPO.

Value and momentum strategies in the Brazilian stock market: the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath

Esta dissertação analisa o desempenho de três estratégias de investimento em carteiras de custo zero (“value”, “momentum” e uma combinação 50/50 delas, que é chamada de “combo”) no mercado de ações brasileiro durante a última década. Os resultados são comparados aos encontrados por Asness, Moskowitz e Pedersen (2009) para quatro mercados: EUA, Reino Unido, Europa Continental, e Japão. Uma análise específica é feita em torno da crise financeira de 2008, comparando os resultados pré- e pós-crise. O índice de Sharpe é usado para ajustar os desempenhos por seus riscos, e para classificar as estratégias para diferentes horizontes de investimento. Os resultados mostram um ótimo desempenho da estratégia “combo” nos últimos três anos, período que inclui a crise de 2008, mas considerando todo o período analisado a estratégia “value” obteve o melhor desempenho. Esse resultado difere dos resultados encontrados para os quatro mercados de referência, onde a estratégia combo tem o melhor desempenho. A análise do horizonte de investimento mostra que a escolha do investidor pode mudar com diferentes horizontes.

Monetary policy and the cross-section of stock returns: a FAVAR approach

We use a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) to estimate the impact of monetary policy shocks on the cross-section of stock returns. Our FAVAR combines unobserved factors extracted from a large set of nancial and macroeconomic indicators with the Federal Funds rate. We nd that monetary policy shocks have heterogeneous e ects on the crosssection of stock returns. These e ects are very well explained by the degree of external nance dependence, as well as by other sectoral characteristics.