A organização e o novo conceito de capital no capitalismo dos profissionais

Modern societies cannot anymore be just defined as classical or bourgeois capitalism. Since the emergence of a second relation of production and a third social class in capitalist societies, they are mixed societies where two forms of property – capital and organization – are present. That is why modern capitalism is not anymore classical or bourgeois capitalism, but a mixed form that we call professionals’ capitalism or knowledge capitalism or technobureaucratic. In this paper I define the new relation of production that we call “organization”. As to capital, I discuss the transformation of its definition as capitalism changed historically.

Isolated capital cities and misgovernance: theory and evidence

Motivated by a novel stylized fact { countries with isolated capital cities display worse quality of governance { we provide a framework of endogenous institutional choice based on the idea that elites are constrained by the threat of rebellion, and that this threat is rendered less e ective by distance from the seat of political power. In established democracies, the threat of insurgencies is not a binding constraint, and the model predicts no correlation between isolated capitals and misgovernance. In contrast, a correlation emerges in equilibrium in the case of autocracies. Causality runs both ways: broader power sharing (associated with better governance) means that any rents have to be shared more broadly, hence the elite has less of an incentive to protect its position by isolating the capital city; conversely, a more isolated capital city allows the elite to appropriate a larger share of output, so the costs of better governance for the elite, in terms of rents that would have to be shared, are larger. We show evidence that this pattern holds true robustly in the data. We also show that isolated capitals are associated with less power sharing, a larger income premium enjoyed by capital city inhabitants, and lower levels of military spending by ruling elites, as predicted by the theory.

Evolução do capital humano no Brasil e nos EUA entre - 1992-2007.

Este artigo investiga a evolução do capital humano para o Brasil e os Estados Unidos no período de 1992 a 2007, utilizando uma medida de capital humano baseada em dados microeconômicos. Uma das principais contribuições deste artigo é a construção de uma medida específica de capital humano que permite mensurar tanto a evolução da participação dos diversos níveis de escolaridade e experiência do trabalhador no total de horas trabalhadas como a variação em sua produtividade ao longo do tempo. Os resultados mostram que o capital humano da economia americana encontra-se estacionário, enquanto que o estoque de capital humano da economia brasileira teve um crescimento de apenas 13% no período. Isso ocorreu devido à elevação da participação na mão-de-obra de trabalhadores mais qualificados, que foi em parte compensada pela redução da produtividade. Por último, mostra-se que a dinâmica da remuneração do capital humano na economia brasileira dependeu basicamente da oferta, enquanto que na economia americana ela foi afetada tanto pela oferta quanto pela demanda por capital humano.

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 fmns 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.

Capital flows and monetary control under a domestic currency substitution regime: the recent Brazilian experience

The 90s have witnessed a resumption in capital flows to Latin America. due to the conjugation of low interest rates in the US and economic reforms in most LA countries. In Brazil. however. substantial capital flows have becn induced by the extremely high domestic interest rates practiced by the Central Bank as a measure of last reson given the absence of successful stabilization policies. These very high interest rates were needed to prevent capital flight in a context of a surprisingly stable inflation rate above 20% a month. and keep interest bearing govemment securities preferable to foreign assets as money substitutes. We carefully describe how this domestic currency substitution regime (interest bearing govemment securities are substituted for MIas cash holdings) requires the Central Bank to renounce aoy control over monerary aggregates. In this domestic currency substitution regime. hyperinflation is the most likely outcome of an isolated (i.e.. without fiscal adjusanents) attempt by the Brazilian Central Bank to control money.

Health and development with imperfect capital markets

This paper investigates the interaction between investment in education and in life-expanding investments, in a simple two-period model in which individuaIs are liquidity constrained in the first period. We show that under low leveIs of health and capital, investments in human capital and in health are complement: since the probability of survival is small, there is littIe incentive to invest in human capital; therefore the return on health investment is also low. This reinforcing effect does not hold for higher leveIs of health or capital, and the two investments become substitute. This property has many consequences. First, subsidizing health care may have dramatically different effects on private investment in human capital, depending on the initial leveI of health and capital. Second, the assumption that mortality is endogenous induces an increase in inequality of income: since health investment is a normal good, the return on education is also lower for poor individuaIs. Third,in a non-overlapping generation madel with non-altruistic agents, the hea1th leveI of the population has strong consequences on growth. For a very low leveI of hea1th, mortality is too high for the investment on education to be profitable. For a higher, but still low, levei of hea1th the economy grows on1y if the initial stock of capital is high enough; bad health and low capital create a poverty trapo Fourth, we compare redistributive income policies versus public hea1th measures. Redistributing income reduces both static and dynamic inequality, but slows growth. In contrast, a paternalistic health policy that forces the poor to invest in hea1th reduces dynamic inequality and may foster growth.

Balance of payment crises and capital flows : the role of liquidity

A model of externaI CrISIS is deveIoped focusing on the interaction between Iiquidity creation by financiaI intermediaries and foreign exchange collapses. The intermediaries' role of transforming maturities is shown to result in larger movements of capital and a higher probability of crisis. This resembles the observed cycle in capital fiows: large infiows, crisis and abrupt outfiows. The mo deI highlights how adverse productivity and international interest rate shocks can be magnified by the behavior of individual foreign investors linked together through their deposits in the intermediaries. An eventual collapse of the exchange rate can link investors' behavior even further. The basic model is then extended, quite naturally, to study the effects of capital fiow contagion between countries.

Do capital controls boost EME´s resilience to financial crises?

Capital controls are again in vogue as a number of emerging markets have reintroduced these measures in recent years in response to a “flood” of international capital. Policymakers use these tools to buttress their economies against the “sudden stop” risk that accompanies international capital flows. Using a panel VAR model, we show that capital controls appear to make emerging market economies (EMEs) more resistant to financial crises by showing that lower post-crisis output loss is correlated with stronger capital controls. However, EMEs that employ capital controls seem to be more crisis-prone. Thus, policymakers should carefully evaluate whether the benefits of capital controls outweigh their costs.

Elasticity of substitution between capital and labor: a panel data approach

This paper estimates the elasticity of substitution of an aggregate production function. The estimating equation is derived from the steady state of a neoclassical growth model. The data comes from the PWT in which different countries face different relative prices of the investment good and exhibit different investment-output ratios. Then, using this variation we estimate the elasticity of substitution. The novelty of our approach is that we use dynamic panel data techniques, which allow us to distinguish between the short and the long run elasticity and handle a host of econometric and substantive issues. In particular we accommodate the possibility that different countries have different total factor productivities and other country specific effects and that such effects are correlated with the regressors. We also accommodate the possibility that the regressors are correlated with the error terms and that shocks to regressors are manifested in future periods. Taking all this into account our estimation resuIts suggest that the Iong run eIasticity of substitution is 0.7, which is Iower than the eIasticity that had been used in previous macro-deveIopment exercises. We show that this lower eIasticity reinforces the power of the neoclassical mo deI to expIain income differences across countries as coming from differential distortions.