Sustainable miracles : protection and competition in the Brazilian oil industry

It is often suggested that competition improves productivity, however, the underlying support for this idea is surprisingly thin. This paper presents a case study examining the e ects of a change in the competitive environment on productivity at the Petrobras, Brazil's state-owned oil company. Petrobras had a legal monopoly on production, re ning, transportation and importation of oil in Brazil until it was removed in 1995. Even though Petrobras continues to have a de facto monopoly, the end of legal monopoly labor productivity growth rate more than doubled. A growth accounting of the industry shows that between 1977 and 1993 output growth rate (and productivity growth rate) is explained by the accumulation of capital, while Total Factor Productivity (TFP) decreased. Between 1994 and 2000 labor productivity growth rate is completely explained by the growth rate of TFP. The results suggest that the threat of competition alone is su cient to improve productivity. They also provide evidence that restricting competition help cause Brazil's depression of the 1980s.

Monopoly rights can reduce income big time

We study a two–sector version of the neoclassical growth model with coalitions of factor suppliers in the capital producing sectors. We show that if the coalitions have monopoly rights, then they block the adoption of the efficient technology. We also show that blocking leads to a decrease in the productivity of each capital producing sector and to an increase in the relative price of capital; as a result the capital stock and the production fall in each sector. We finally show that the implied fall in the level of per–capita income can be large quantitatively.

Debt and default in a growth model

This paper presents a small open economy model with capital accumulation and without commitment to repay debt. The optimal debt contract specifies debt relief following bad shocks and debt increase following good shocks and brings first order benefits if the country's borrowing constraint is binding. Countries with less capital (with higher marginal productivity of capital) have a higher debt-GDP ratio, are more likely to default on uncontingent bonds, require higher debt relief after bad shocks and pay a higher spread over treasury. Debt relief prescribed by the optimal contract following the interest rate hikes of 1980-81 is more than half of the debt forgiveness obtained by the main Latin American countries through the Brady agreements.

Padrões de crescimento econômico e seus impactos sobre a desigualdade

A presente pesquisa investigou a relação entre crescimento econômico e distribuição de renda na América Latina e nos países em desenvolvimento. Ao contrário da literatura sobre o tema, a qual busca estabelecer uma relação causal entre desigualdade e crescimento, a preocupação foi identificar as conseqüências de distintos processos de crescimento econômico sobre a distribuição funcional e pessoal da renda. Como se sabe, o crescimento econômico provêm da acumulação de fatores produtivos e do aumento da produtividade. Nesse sentido, foi possível diferenciar os impactos sobre a distribuição de renda de um crescimento baseado na acumulação de capital daquele baseado em ganhos de produtividade. Esses aspectos deram uma compreensão melhor do processo de crescimento econômico e permitiram avaliar os efeitos de transformações políticas e institucionais sobre o crescimento e a distribuição de renda. A análise empírica centrou foco em dois temas: os efeitos das reformas econômicas na América Latina sobre o crescimento e a distribuição de renda da região; e os efeitos da abertura comercial e financeira mundial sobre o crescimento econômico e a distribuição de renda nas economias em desenvolvimento em seu conjunto.

O desenvolvimento constitucional da pena de morte nos Estados Unidos

Regulamentada desde as legislações mais arcaicas, como o Código de Hamurabi na Babilônia de 4.000 a.C., a pena de morte é um dos institutos mais antigos da humanidade. É também um dos temas mais controvertidos do Direito, cerne de debates que se intensificam na medida na medida em que os direitos humanos são universalizados, principalmente em meados do século XX. Diante disso, a audaciosa manutenção da pena de morte no sistema jurídico norte-americano, o último reduto do instituto no mundo ocidental, é o resultado de longo e árduo processo de desenvolvimento constitucional, orientado principalmente pelos constantes avanços da jurisprudência da Suprema Corte dos Estados Unidos sobre a pena capital. O presente trabalho tem como escopo apresentar o histórico de tais decisões, bem como fundamentos de cunho criminológico, moral, filosófico e econômico aplicáveis à sistemática da pena de morte, expondo ainda dados sobre a aplicação da pena capital e perspectivas para o futuro da sanção nos Estados Unidos.

Exchange rate management techniques

This briefing note addresses the question: What revisions of financial regulation and financial governance in Brazil are necessary to support Brazilian development? What’s in place and what’s missing? The focus here is a dimension of financial regulation and governance: the regulation of capital flows and of exchange rate operations. The arguments are organized in the following manner. In the next section, we summarize the impacts of th crisis on the emerging-market economies and on the regulation of the international monetary and financial system. The third section discusses the post-crisis dilemmas faced by these economies. Finally, the fourth section presents some policy recommendations for Brazil.

Flexible information acquisition and optimal Tobin tax in tractable dynamic global games

My dissertation focuses on dynamic aspects of coordination processes such as reversibility of early actions, option to delay decisions, and learning of the environment from the observation of other people’s actions. This study proposes the use of tractable dynamic global games where players privately and passively learn about their actions’ true payoffs and are able to adjust early investment decisions to the arrival of new information to investigate the consequences of the presence of liquidity shocks to the performance of a Tobin tax as a policy intended to foster coordination success (chapter 1), and the adequacy of the use of a Tobin tax in order to reduce an economy’s vulnerability to sudden stops (chapter 2). Then, it analyzes players’ incentive to acquire costly information in a sequential decision setting (chapter 3). In chapter 1, a continuum of foreign agents decide whether to enter or not in an investment project. A fraction λ of them are hit by liquidity restrictions in a second period and are forced to withdraw early investment or precluded from investing in the interim period, depending on the actions they chose in the first period. Players not affected by the liquidity shock are able to revise early decisions. Coordination success is increasing in the aggregate investment and decreasing in the aggregate volume of capital exit. Without liquidity shocks, aggregate investment is (in a pivotal contingency) invariant to frictions like a tax on short term capitals. In this case, a Tobin tax always increases success incidence. In the presence of liquidity shocks, this invariance result no longer holds in equilibrium. A Tobin tax becomes harmful to aggregate investment, which may reduces success incidence if the economy does not benefit enough from avoiding capital reversals. It is shown that the Tobin tax that maximizes the ex-ante probability of successfully coordinated investment is decreasing in the liquidity shock. Chapter 2 studies the effects of a Tobin tax in the same setting of the global game model proposed in chapter 1, with the exception that the liquidity shock is considered stochastic, i.e, there is also aggregate uncertainty about the extension of the liquidity restrictions. It identifies conditions under which, in the unique equilibrium of the model with low probability of liquidity shocks but large dry-ups, a Tobin tax is welfare improving, helping agents to coordinate on the good outcome. The model provides a rationale for a Tobin tax on economies that are prone to sudden stops. The optimal Tobin tax tends to be larger when capital reversals are more harmful and when the fraction of agents hit by liquidity shocks is smaller. Chapter 3 focuses on information acquisition in a sequential decision game with payoff complementar- ity and information externality. When information is cheap relatively to players’ incentive to coordinate actions, only the first player chooses to process information; the second player learns about the true payoff distribution from the observation of the first player’s decision and follows her action. Miscoordination requires that both players privately precess information, which tends to happen when it is expensive and the prior knowledge about the distribution of the payoffs has a large variance.

O city marketing em Natal/RN e a construção da imagem da cidade

The growing importance of tourism in overall economic activity worldwide has favored the intensification of competition among cities that seek to create environments attractive to tourists and potential investors. It has been common practice to import characteristics of the business environment in the public management of cities. The city marketing is a key tool used by public leaders to promote a linkage between the tourism image and urban image and involves, in addition to promoting the image of the city, the planning of interventions in urban space, trying to formulate a positive image of the city able to facilitate the deployment of capital. This research seeks to understand the nature of city marketing as part of contemporary urban management and analyzes how is its application in decisions concerning the promotion of tourism in Natal/RN. The approach of this research is qualitative, exploratory and descriptive, in which respondents were the main leaders of two of the official tourism site, the Empresa Potiguar de Promoção Turística and the Secretaria Municipal de Turismo e Desenvolvimento Econômico. It was found that there is a strong articulation of public power with private enterprise in the design and conduct of the actions of urban marketing, that from the survey data show that the behavior of target markets provide guidelines for taking strategic decisions relating to tourism. Sun and sea are some key elements explored to form the image of Natal and to authorize the sale of the city as a tropical paradise. However, there is an increase in the diversification of tourism products, seeking to increase flow to the segments of ecotourism, adventure, business and culture. It s also growing the use of local culture as a tourism product, however, the cultural representation focuses on superficial values and does not bring to light the social and historical richness that the city has. Public authorities use the city marketing strategies as a means able to maximize the attractiveness of Natal urban space to investors, business groups and tourists. It can be observed that urban managers seek solutions that can continuously increase the tours, which often manifests in interventions that focus the tourist areas of the city, in oposition of those who do not contribute to a positive reading of the city, which ultimately generate the worsening of spacial and social inequalities

O Litoral e a metrópole dinâmica imobiliária, turismo e expansão urbana na região metropolitana de Natal-RN

The metropolitan regions of Northeast Brazil are being gradually included in a scenario of international investments, which are motivated by the restructuring of both touristic and real-estate sectors. The new capital, real-estate developers and space configurations that result from this process indicate the need for the creation and implementation of public tools which should, at least, allow the mitigation of the urban impacts and environmental losses resulting from this situation. The effects on landscape and on the socio-spatial configuration result from the intensification caused by the dynamism of the "real estate-tourism" sector. There is a regional integration as an expression of the urban expansion of the metropolitan area of Natal. This study investigates the uniqueness of the restructuring and territorial integration of coastal areas and the strategies of the circuit of capital accumulation formed by linking the real estate to tourism. It is intended to increase the understanding about the strategies of tourism, real estate and public policy agents involved in this territorial reconfiguration and in the fund-raising needed for the investments, to understand the existing social and environmental effects and their future trends and also to understand the forms of spatial production as results from the practices of approaching the land transformation and the tourism valorization of the landscape, in a synchronous manner, first in the Northeast region and, as a focal study, in the Metropolitan Area of Natal. Likewise, it is intended to apprehend the current processes of metropolization of the eastern coast of Rio Grande do Norte, in addition to indicate its physical-territorial transformation and the types of projects/developments promoted by the market in the recent period. Based upon analysis undertaken for the Metropolitan Region of Natal RN, this piece of work presents some considerations on possible legal instruments that can be adjusted to the municipalities which are experiencing the impact of this peculiar and recent phenomenon in the region, caused by the arrival of the real estate-touristic capital. It is also intended to point out basic proposals to the forms of public intervention, in a speculative way, starting from a Metropolitan Planning project within a medium and long term

De repente, tudo mudou de lugar: refletindo sobre metamorfose urbana e gentrificação em Mossoró-RN

This study aims at solidifying the theoretical bases to provide, above all, an explanation for this phenomenon which currently happens, with a scenario of social, political, economic and cultural transformations worldwide in medium cities. Nevertheless, because it has different dimensions from its transformation axes, gentrification comes with change, but also with the introduction of a new purpose in the space using and occupation, outlining in this context the identity of places from the formation of centralities with the presence of flows with social and economic dynamicsThe current forms of geographic space appropriation show the directions of the senses and ideological profile which recreates the meanings and uses of content and materials from descriptions of a historical past. However, today there is an economic context in the urban space which refers to a search of strategies for change, i.e., the acquisition of parameter aimed at meeting the demands of the relationship between capital and labor, which ends up overriding some actions for the specification of the transformation methods within the urban space to be explained by new needs and also by the agents from the value adding to their interests and investments. Thus, we assume that the appreciation/gentrification of urban spaces may or may not result from the building of a public space, since the dialogic structure as a place of political interaction externalize conflicts and disagreements in general; it keeps segregating spaces. As new spaces are transformed, the access to them tends to happen with particular restriction, whereas some places like parks, shopping malls, high-rise and horizontal condos are the scene for major professional and family events. In this context, the gentrification process is used to designate interventions in the urban environment, in certain city spaces which are considered central to public and private investments. A historical place is permitted to be presented as a scenario, a stage full of attractions, through the transformation process. Studying gentrification consists of an analysis of the underlying interests in the transformation of these areas, and especially of the assessment of the interest level in the private sector to partner in order to modify the landscape. Gentrification results from the transformation processes of capital, which influences the efforts and investments application in order to establish and achieve optimal economic growth, focusing on a location socio-culturally centered in the urban space. Thus, the urban social structure develops in the light of some questions that relate not only the cities growth but also environmental conditions it provides in cities like Mossoro, State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil 2005 a 2011.

Dos caminhos de água aos caminhos de ferro: a construção da hegemonia de Natal através das vias de transporte (1820-1920)

At a time of changes on the territory during the 19th century, the political and socioeconomic elites of the province and later State of Rio Grande do Norte evolved a discourse in order to justify the permanence of Natal as a city holding a status of capital. In this work we analyze the means employed by the ruling classes to impose their wish to raise Natal to an outstanding position among the existing cities by intervening on the territory during a period of one hundred years (1820-1920). During that time, which was characterized by changing commercial flows and technological development, the elites interventions were essentially directed to the implementation of modes of transportation, especially the railway. We try to understand the reinforcement of Natal as a capital city not only in political and administrative terms, but mainly in a commercial and symbolic manner, through the discourse and interventions undertaken by the local administrative elites, who stimulated the creation of a set of relations on the territory that also imprinted visible marks in the capital s urban fabric. These interventions were based upon the establishment of an infrastructure for exporting the State s production, firstly through and despite the Potengi River, and later on by the construction of railways. Although the project of Natal s hegemony had been outlined before the establishment of the railway network, in both cases the ultimate objective was to reinforce and develop the capital city as a commercial urban center to the detriment of other cities

Desenvolvimento (in) sustentável das indústrias cerâmicas da microrregião do Vale-do-Açu/RN

A great discussion of this work refers to development that is related to the common census of economic growth, in addition, another component of this discussion is related to socio-cultural and environmental impacts of this conception of progress. Giving economic progress is not necessary, since the development in its fullness, that progress depends, but what is sought is a harmony between capital accumulation and environmental limits and social interactions between men and between them and nature. The presence or absence of this harmonious relationship can be observed in various industrial activities, more punctual can cite the example of the developed ceramic activity in the meso-Valley-Acu in Rio Grande do Norte where such activity has great economic representativeness for the region, but that does not have good relations with social and environmental issues and is more focused on the accumulation of capital by increasing its level of industrial activity. Given this debate, the present paper aims to present the profile of a ceramic tile Valley-of-Acu and impacts, ecosocioambientais generated as a result of this activity as well. Methodologically the research will be conducted through literature research papers in books and other work carried out on the same theme, the second time will be held the empirical part of the research through interviews with managers of industries (selected through sample with the criteria set later ) as well as with employees working on the factory floor and city managers in the region under analysis and other agencies responsible for regulation and control of activity potter in the state

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Estrutura econômica, mercado de trabalho e evolução sócio-ocupacional no Rio Grande do Norte 2001 a 2008: reflexo de uma condição mercantil e estruturalmente periférica

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the evolution of the socio-occupational status in Rio Grande do Norte from 2001 to 2008, based on the characterization of the socio-economic status of this State from the analysis of labor market norte-rio-grandense . The study, specifically, drew a comparison between the dynamics of the labor market in Rio Grande do Norte and the capital city, Natal. From this perspective, the purpose was to make a relationship between the social division of labor and its effects on the socio-spatial division, represented in the "macro scale" by the federal unit and the "micro level" for the capital; locus of economic and population concentration. The collection of data on the labor market had as a major source PNAD/IBGE, characterizing the labor market in many ways: people of working age, economically active population and employed and unemployed people, classified by age, sex, color, education, income and social protection condition. However, as for the socio-occupational division, we follow the methodology used by the research group on national television, based in IPPUR /UFRJ, called Monitoring of the Metropolis," which rallied twenty-four groups that aggregate the occupations found in the PNAD/IBGE, in eight groups of socio-occupational categories, according to the similarity between them. It was used in the socio-spatial cutting two relevant discussions, which are inter-related and were characterized as crucial points in developing the research problem: the former was related to the influence of the hegemony of merchant capital in the labor market in Rio Grande North and, the latter, it referred the socio-economic relations between the territory and the variable occupation. Lastly, the results all indicated that in Rio Grande do Norte, as a peripheral state, has suffered the devastating influence of the hegemony of capital purely commercial basis, where "wealth" of capitalism is generated through the sphere of mere movement of goods and services rather than a productive process due to the social relations of production more advanced. We have a little advanced economic structure, with a tertiary sector that has propagated under-employment or disguised unemployment. Similarly, the agricultural sector has been presented as an example of greater social degradation of working conditions in the state. The secondary sector, in turn, also was not behind this uncertainty; on the contrary, confirmed that condition, with poor levels of income, low education of the workforce and a high degree of social helplessness, even in the state capital, space full urban area, which although always appear with a favorable condition compared to Province, in practically most of the variables studied, was also reflected at the same time the author of a structurally underdeveloped condition