Development of national statistical systems and the responsibilities of national statistical offices

Includes bibliography

Busca em vizinhança variável aplicado na solução do problema de planejamento da expansão do sistema de transmissão de energia elétrica

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Moeda e política monetária: duas visões

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

As fronteiras da província: rotas de comércio interprovincial, Minas Gerais, 1839-1884

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

The fiscal impact of trade liberalization and commodity price fluctuation: the case of Costa Rica, 1980-1998

Includes bibliography

O uso de wavelets na determinação do expoente de Hurst de uma série temporal diária de chuvas do município de Araras-SP de 1955-2000

Pós-graduação em Física - IGCE

Capital flows to Latin America: third quarter 2003

Includes bibliography

Avaliação do intemperismo químico e influências antropogênicas na bacia do Alto Sorocaba (SP)

Pós-graduação em Geologia Regional - IGCE

A virtual contradiction between international migration and human rights

Abstract If there is a geographical area that will be particularly affected by the tragedy of September 11, that will be the international borders of the United States. It is understandable that a country that enters in a state of war after been attacked with enormous losses, reacts by closing its international borders. Such immediate reaction has now been substituted by a more strict control over everything that crosses the border but, a fact remains, the border life is not going to be what it used to before September 11. In the short run, everything that crosses the border has slowed down by new controls. In the long run many things will return to what it was before that Tuesday, but for a long while, life at the border will not be the same. An intense interaction of more than twelve million people from the two sides of the U.S.-Mexico border have made us live in many instances as if the border does not exist. This is the case among many of us in the way we practice our family life. For the planning of weddings, birthdays, reunions, ceremonies, the border is more virtual than real. This is reversed as we get more serious in what it means to the space where institutions, the laws and the governments reminds us that there is a line that marks the beginning and the end of two different nations.

Macroeconomics for development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Some new considerations on countercyclicality

Includes bibliography.

Expectations and industrial output in Uruguay: Sectoral interdependence and common trends

This paper examines the interdependence between expectations and growth by analysing Uruguayan manufacturing industry, divided for the purpose into four industry groupings differentiated by trade participation and production specialization. The study shows that there is a long-run relationship between industrialists' expectations and output growth in each grouping. In the most trade-oriented groupings the relationship is one of predetermination, showing how useful expectations are as a guide to sectoral growth. Expectations in the four industrial groupings are shown to follow a common long-run trend, identified with the one guiding the export grouping. Impulse-response simulations derived from a multisectoral vector autoregression (VAR) model confirm the important role of the industries most exposed to international competition in spreading shorter-term shocks.

Economic growth and real volatility: The case of Latin America and the Caribbean

Using a new database of quarterly data for 21 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean for the 1990-2012 period, this document shows that the duration of GDP contractions appears to be a rather robust indicator of real volatility, and is negatively correlated with long run growth in Latin America and the Caribbean during the period. These results are consistent with different theoretical hypotheses in the literature that relate the duration of GDP contractions with economic growth. They also show that the relationship between real volatility and economic growth in the region is robust to the inclusion of external variables that control for external uncertainty and volatility.

The impact of climate change on the macroeconomy in the Caribbean

In this study, an attempt is made to assess the economic impact of climate change on nine countries in the Caribbean basin: Aruba, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago. A methodological approach proposed by Dell et al. (2008) is used in preference to the traditional Integrated Assessment Models. The evolution of climate variables and of the macroeconomy of each of the nine countries over the period 1970 to 2006 is analyzed and preliminary evidence of a relationship between the macroeconomy and climate change is examined. The preliminary investigation uses correlation, Granger causality and simple regression methods. The preliminary evidence suggests that there is some relationship but that the direction of causation between the macroeconomy and the climate variables is indeterminate. The main analysis involves the use of a panel data (random effects) model which fits the historical data (1971-2007) very well. Projections of economic growth from 2008 to 2099 are done on the basis of four climate scenarios: the International Panel on Climate Change A2, B2, a hybrid A2B2 (the mid-point of A2 and B2), and a ‘baseline’ or ‘Business as Usual’ scenario, which assumes that the growth rate in the period 2008-2099 is the same as the average growth rate over the period 1971-2007. The best average growth rate is under the B2 scenario, followed by the hybrid A2B2 and A2 scenarios, in that order. Although negative growth rates eventually dominate, they are largely positive for a long time. The projections all display long-run secular decline in growth rates notwithstanding short-run upward trends, including some very sharp ones, moving eventually from declining positive rates to negative ones. The costs associated with the various scenarios are all quite high, rising to as high as a present value (2007 base year) of US$14 billion in 2099 (constant 1990 prices) for the B2 scenario and US$21 billion for the BAU scenario. These costs were calculated on the basis of very conservative estimates of the cost of environmental degradation. Mitigation and adaptation costs are likely to be quite high though a small fraction of projected total investment costs.

An assessment of the economic impact of climate change on the Energy Sector in Trinidad and Tobago

The energy sector is a dominant one in Trinidad and Tobago and it plays an important role in the twin-island republic‟s economy. In 2008, the share of the energy sector in gross domestic product (GDP) amounted to approximately 48% while contributing 57% to total Government revenue. In that same year, the sector‟s share of merchandise exports was 88%, made up mainly of refined oil products including petroleum, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and natural gas liquids (Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, 2009). Trinidad and Tobago is the main exporter of oil in the Caribbean region and the main producer of liquefied natural gas in Latin America and the Caribbean. The role of the country‟s energy sector is, therefore, not limited to serving as the engine of growth for the national economy but also includes providing energy security for the small island developing States of the Caribbean. However, with its hydrocarbon-based economy, Trinidad and Tobago is ranked seventh in the world in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita, producing an estimated 40 million tonnes of CO2 annually. Almost 90% of these CO2 emissions are attributed directly to the energy sector through petrochemical production (56%), power generation (30%) and flaring (3%). Trinidad and Tobago is a ratified signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Although, as a non-Annex 1 country, Trinidad and Tobago is not required to cut its greenhouse gas emissions under the Protocol, it is currently finalizing a climate change policy document as well as a national energy policy with specific strategies to address climate change. The present study complements the climate change policy document by providing an economic analysis of the impact that climate change could have on the energy sector in Trinidad and Tobago under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change alternative climate scenarios (A2 and B2) as compared to a baseline situation of no climate change. Results of analyses indicate that, in the short-run, climate change, represented by change in temperature, is not a significant determinant of domestic consumption of energy, electricity in particular, in Trinidad and Tobago. With energy prices subsidized domestically and fixed for years at a time, energy price does not play a role in determining electricity demand. Economic growth, as indicated by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is the single major determinant of electricity consumption in the short-run. In the long-run, temperature, GDP, and patterns of electricity use, jointly determine electricity consumption. Variations in average annual temperature due to climate change for the A2 scenario are expected to lead to an increase in electricity consumption per capita, equivalent to an annual increase of 1.07% over the 2011 baseline value of electricity consumption per capita. Under the B2 scenario, the average annual increase in electricity consumption per capita over the 2011 baseline value is expected to be 1.01%. The estimated economic impact of climate change on electricity consumption for the period 2011-2050 is valued at US$ 142.88 million under the A2 scenario and US$ 134.83million under the B2 scenario. These economic impact estimates are equivalent to a loss of 0.737% of 2009 GDP under the A2 climate scenario and a loss of 0.695% of 2009 GDP under the B2 scenario. On the energy supply side, sea level rise and storm surges present significant risks to oil installations and infrastructure at the Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago (PETROTRIN) Pointe-a-Pierre facilities (Singh and El Fouladi, 2006). However, data limitations do not permit the conduct of an economic analysis of the impact of projected sea level rise on oil and gas production.

Productivity, social expenditure and income distribution in Latin America

This paper discusses the role of institutions and structural change in shaping income inequality. It is argued that while social expenditure and direct redistribution are crucial for improving income distribution, sustainable equality requires structural change to create decent jobs. The relative importance of these variables in different countries is analyzed and a typology suggested. It is argued that the most equal countries in the world combine strong institutions in favor of redistribution and knowledge-intensive production structures that sustain growth and employment in the long run. Both institutions and the production structure in Latin America fail to foster equality and this explains its extremely high levels of inequality. The last decade witnessed significant advances in reducing inequality in Latin America, but these advances are threatened by slow productivity growth and weak structural change.