Uma análise dos leilões de partilha de produção do pré-sal através de simulação computacional

O presente trabalho consiste na aplicação da simulação computacional como método de aprofundamento do estudo de mecanismos de leilões aplicados na alocação do direito de exploração das reservas de petróleo da camada do pré-sal. A camada do pré-sal está localizada na costa brasileira e apresenta um grande potencial em termos de reserva de óleo e gás. A função lance aplicada para os participantes criados computacionalmente foi estimada com base em dados experimentais e segue uma função exponencial. A simulação possibilita reproduzir o modelo de leilão considerando todas as características e parâmetros dos experimentos sem incorrer no custo da realização de novas sessões de leilão com participantes reais. Os leilões estudados foram o leilão de valores privados de 1° preço e o leilão de valores privados de 2° preço. Através dos resultados obtidos identificou-se que o leilão de valores privados de 1° preço é menos arriscado que o leilão de valores privados de 2° preço; no leilão com simetria, o Princípio de Equivalência de Receita é válido; a eficiência observada é menor em leilões assimétricos; o leilão de 2° preço comparado com o de 1° preço apresenta um tradeoff entre a eficiência e a receita do governo; e que considerando o aprendizado dos participantes, não se observam alterações significativas nas estatísticas analisadas à medida que os participantes se tornam mais experientes.

Taxing hard-to-tax markets

Tax enforcement costs constrain the government s ability to observe economic transactions, giving rise to hard-to-tax (HTT) markets. In these markets transactions are untaxed and consumers are better o¤ than in taxed markets. This paper studies a novel approach to combat evasion in HTT markets: consumer auditing, which rewards consumers for re- questing transaction receipts. We develop a Hotelling-type spatial model of sales taxation to analyze the welfare and distributional e¤ects of the implementation of this policy. We and that consumer auditing allows for a lower tax rate and greater provision of the public good in the economy. We show that this policy not only can enhance welfare, but also equalize utilities of consumers across markets

Inequality treatment effects

This paper presents semiparametric estimators for treatment effects parameters when selection to treatment is based on observable characteristics. The parameters of interest in this paper are those that capture summarized distributional effects of the treatment. In particular, the focus is on the impact of the treatment calculated by differences in inequality measures of the potential outcomes of receiving and not receiving the treatment. These differences are called here inequality treatment effects. The estimation procedure involves a first non-parametric step in which the probability of receiving treatment given covariates, the propensity-score, is estimated. Using the reweighting method to estimate parameters of the marginal distribution of potential outcomes, in the second step weighted sample versions of inequality measures are.computed. Calculations of semiparametric effciency bounds for inequality treatment effects parameters are presented. Root-N consistency, asymptotic normality, and the achievement of the semiparametric efficiency bound are shown for the semiparametric estimators proposed. A Monte Carlo exercise is performed to investigate the behavior in finite samples of the estimator derived in the paper.

Three applications of the marginal cost of public funds concept

This paper illustrates the use of the marginal cost of public funds concept in three contexts. First, we extend Parry’s (2003) analysis of the efficiency effects excise taxes in the U.K., primarily by incorporating the distortion caused by imperfect competition in the cigarette market and distinguishing between the MCFs for per unit and ad valorem taxes on cigarettes. Our computations show, contrary to the standard result in the literature, that the per unit tax on cigarettes has a slightly lower MCF than the ad valorem tax on cigarettes. Second, we calculate the MCF for a payroll tax in a labour market with involuntary unemployment, using the Shapiro and Stiglitz (1984) efficiency wage model as our framework. Our computations, based on Canadian labour market data, indicate that incorporating the distortion caused by involuntary unemployment raises the MCF by 25 to 50 percent. Third, we derive expressions for the distributionally-weighted MCFs for the exemption level and the marginal tax rate for a “flat tax”, such as the one that has been adopted by the province of Alberta. This allows us to develop a restricted, but tractable, version of the optimal income tax problem. Computations indicate that the optimal marginal tax rate may be quite high, even with relatively modest pro-poor distributional preferences.

Asymptotic efficiency in an instrumental variable model

Esta dissertação se propõe ao estudo de inferência usando estimação por método generalizado dos momentos (GMM) baseado no uso de instrumentos. A motivação para o estudo está no fato de que sob identificação fraca dos parâmetros, a inferência tradicional pode levar a resultados enganosos. Dessa forma, é feita uma revisão dos mais usuais testes para superar tal problema e uma apresentação dos arcabouços propostos por Moreira (2002) e Moreira & Moreira (2013), e Kleibergen (2005). Com isso, o trabalho concilia as estatísticas utilizadas por eles para realizar inferência e reescreve o teste score proposto em Kleibergen (2005) utilizando as estatísticas de Moreira & Moreira (2013), e é obtido usando a teoria assintótica em Newey & McFadden (1984) a estatística do teste score ótimo. Além disso, mostra-se a equivalência entre a abordagem por GMM e a que usa sistema de equações e verossimilhança para abordar o problema de identificação fraca.

On paternalistic leadership fit: exploring cross-cultural endorsement, leader-follower fit, and the boundary role of organizational culture

Although cross-cultural leadership research has thrived in international business literature, little attention has been devoted to understanding the effectiveness of non-western theories beyond their original contexts. The purpose of this study is to examine the cross-cultural endorsement of paternalistic leadership, an emerging non-western leadership theory, using data from GLOBE project. Using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses we found measurement equivalence of a scale derived from GLOBE’s data, which enabled us to compare the endorsement of paternalistic leadership dimensions across 10 cultural clusters and 55 societies. Our study revealed that there are significant differences in the importance societies give to each dimension, suggesting that paternalism as leadership style is not universally nor homogeneously endorsed. Furthermore, results suggest that different patterns of endorsement of each of these dimensions give rise to idiosyncratic shades of paternalistic leadership across societies. Implications for theory and future research on international business are discussed.

The dimensions of trust in interorganizational relationships: how buyer and supplier perspectives differ?

Apesar da pesquisa em confiança interorganizacional e sua relação com performance ter sido conduzida sob as perspectivas da Teoria de Custos de Transação, Teoria das Trocas Sociais e Canais de Marketing, três importantes lacunas na literatura requerem investigação. Primeiro, está em andamento um debate conceitual sobre a multi-dimensionalidade da confiança, e como ela deve ser operacionalizada e medida, e que se divide em três correntes de pensamento - um construto multidimensional definido por dimensões não dominantes, um construto baseado em duas dimensões dominantes (afetiva e calculativa), ou um construto unidimensional. Segundo, existe ambiguidade em como as dimensões da confiança são definidas, levando a artefatos de equivalência nas escalas e resultados contraditórios. Terceiro, as diferentes percepções que compradores e fornecedores podem ter em cada dimensão da confiança e seu impacto na performance logística ainda não estão claros. Esta pesquisa empírica examina a confiança nas relações entre compradores e fornecedores no setor de logística no Brasil, através de duas amostras e estudos independentes: um examina a percepção dos compradores e o outro examina a dos fornecedores. Em seguida, os dois estudos são comparados para determinar as diferentes perspectivas da confiança e as implicações na performance logística. A análise multivariada mostrou que a confiança parece estar presente nas relações interorganizacionais, e é a percepção do comprador que possui maior relação com a performance logística. Ao mesmo tempo, compradores percebem fornecedores de forma mais negativa nas dimensões mensuráveis (competência e performance), enquanto não foram encontradas diferenças nos aspectos sociais (honestidade e benevolência), o que pode ser resultado do ambiente e cultura pesquisados. As análises mostraram que, apesar da confiança poder ser definida como um construto multidimensional, ela deve ser operacionalizada como um construto unidimensional direcionado pela competência e credibilidade. Este estudo contribui para a prática sugerindo formas de aumentar a confiança interorganizacional para aumento da performance.

Homogeneous middles vs. heterogeneous tails, and the end of the ‘Inverted-U’: the share of the rich is what it’s all about

This paper examines the current global scene of distributional disparities within-nations. There are six main conclusions. First, about 80 per cent of the world’s population now live in regions whose median country has a Gini not far from 40. Second, as outliers are now only located among middle-income and rich countries, the ‘upwards’ side of the ‘Inverted-U’ between inequality and income per capita has evaporated (and with it the statistical support there was for the hypothesis that posits that, for whatever reason, ‘things have to get worse before they can get better’). Third, among middle-income countries Latin America and mineral-rich Southern Africa are uniquely unequal, while Eastern Europe follows a distributional path similar to the Nordic countries. Fourth, among rich countries there is a large (and growing) distributional diversity. Fifth, within a global trend of rising inequality, there are two opposite forces at work. One is ‘centrifugal’, and leads to an increased diversity in the shares appropriated by the top 10 and bottom 40 per cent. The other is ‘centripetal’, and leads to a growing uniformity in the income-share appropriated by deciles 5 to 9. Therefore, half of the world’s population (the middle and upper-middle classes) have acquired strong ‘property rights’ over half of their respective national incomes; the other half, however, is increasingly up for grabs between the very rich and the poor. And sixth, Globalisation is thus creating a distributional scenario in which what really matters is the income-share of the rich — because the rest ‘follows’ (middle classes able to defend their shares, and workers with ever more precarious jobs in ever more ‘flexible’ labour markets). Therefore, anybody attempting to understand the within-nations disparity of inequality should always be reminded of this basic distributional fact following the example of Clinton’s campaign strategist: by sticking a note on their notice-boards saying “It’s the share of the rich, stupid”.

The revenge of the market on the rentiers why neo-liberal reports of the end of history turned out to be premature

Starting from the perspective of heterodox Keynesian-Minskyian-Kindlebergian financial economics, this paper begins by highlighting a number of mechanisms that contributed to the current financial crisis. These include excess liquidity, income polarisation, conflicts between financial and productive capital, lack of intelligent regulation, asymmetric information, principal-agent dilemmas and bounded rationalities. However, the paper then proceeds to argue that perhaps more than ever the ‘macroeconomics’ that led to this crisis only makes analytical sense if examined within the framework of the political settlements and distributional outcomes in which it had operated. Taking the perspective of critical social theories the paper concludes that, ultimately, the current financial crisis is the outcome of something much more systemic, namely an attempt to use neo-liberalism (or, in US terms, neo-conservatism) as a new technology of power to help transform capitalism into a rentiers’ delight. And in particular, into a system without much ‘compulsion’ on big business; i.e., one that imposes only minimal pressures on big agents to engage in competitive struggles in the real economy (while inflicting exactly the opposite fate on workers and small firms). A key component in the effectiveness of this new technology of power was its ability to transform the state into a major facilitator of the ever-increasing rent-seeking practices of oligopolistic capital. The architects of this experiment include some capitalist groups (in particular rentiers from the financial sector as well as capitalists from the ‘mature’ and most polluting industries of the preceding techno-economic paradigm), some political groups, as well as intellectual networks with their allies – including most economists and the ‘new’ left. Although rentiers did succeed in their attempt to get rid of practically all fetters on their greed, in the end the crisis materialised when ‘markets’ took their inevitable revenge on the rentiers by calling their (blatant) bluff.

The spenders-hoarders theory of capital accumulations, wealth distribution and fiscal policy

This paper proposes a simple OLG model which is consistent with the essential facts about consumer behavior, capital accumulation and wealth distribution, and yields some new and surprising conclusions about fiscal policy. By considering a society in which individuais are distinguished according to two characteristics, altruism and wealth preference, we show that those who in the long run hold the bulk of private capital are not so rnuch motivated by dynastic altruism as by preference for wealth. Two types of social segmentation can result with different wcalth distribution. To a large extcnt our results seem to fit reality better than those obtained with standard optimal growth models in which dynastic altruism ( or r ate o f impatience) is the only source of heterogeneity: overaccumulation can appear, public debt and unfunded pensions are not neutra!, estate taxation can improve the welfare of the top wealthy.

Efeitos da composição domiciliar e da escala equivalente sobre as medidas de desigualdade de renda e pobreza no Brasil

MARIANO, J. L. ; FIGUEIREDO, ERIK A. . Efeitos da composição domiciliar e da escala equivalente sobre as medidas de desigualdade de renda e pobreza no Brasil. In: XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Economia,Salvador 2008.

Desenvolvimento de bloco de vedação com barita na composição de partida para blindagem de radiação X

This work main objective is to study the use of bricks in barium X-rays rooms in order to contribute to the optimization of shielding rooms diagnosis. The work was based on experimental measurements of X-ray attenuation (40 to 150 kV), using ceramic seal bearing the incorporation of barium sulfat (BaSO4). Different formulations were studied in three different firing temperatures and evaluated for incorporation in the ceramic body. The composition of 20% of barite processed at a temperature of 950 ° C showed better physical and mechanical properties, is considered the most suitable for the purpose of this work. Were produced bricks sealing composition formulated based on that presented the best technological features. These blocks were tested physically as a building material and wall protective barrier. Properties such as visual, deviation from the square, face flatness, water absorption and compressive strength were evaluated for all the blocks produced. The behavior of this material as attenuator for X-rays was investigated by experimental results which take into account mortar manufacturers barium through the different strains and compared with the reference material (Pb). The simulation results indicated that the ceramic block barium shows excellent properties of attenuation equivalence lead taking into account the energy used in diagnostic X-ray

Tradução, adaptação e validação da versão brasileira do questionário utian quality of life (uqol) para avaliação da qualidade de vida no climatério

The present study had as objective translates, to do equivalence and validation of the Utian Quality of Life (UQOL) for the Brazilian population through methods internationally accepted, in which the original questionnaire was translated for the Portuguese by three teachers and the consensual version was translated back for English by two American teachers (back translation). A multidisciplinary committee evaluated all versions and the final version in Portuguese was applied to climacteric women for the process of adaptation. Validation of the instrument was performed by measuring the reliability and validity properties. Construct validity was examined through the comparison between UQOL and the general measuring scale of quality of life Short Form-36 (SF-36). The final version of translation process was easily recognized by the target population, that didn't tell understanding problems. The results obtained for the reliability intra and interobserver showed significant agreement in all of the subjects. The construct validity was obtained through correlations statistically significant among the domains occupational, health and emotional of UQOL with the SF-36 domains. For the exploratory factorial analysis, it was verified that three factors explain 60% of the total variance of the data, the present study allowed concluding that UQOL was appropriately translated and adapted for applicability in Brazil, presenting high reliability and validity. In that way, the executed project provided the involvement of different areas as gynecology, psychology and physiotherapy (interdisciplinary). Thus, this instrument can be included and used in Brazilian studies to assessment the quality of life during the climacteric years

Padrões de coexistência e utilização do hábitat por duas espécies de Herpsilochmus (Aves: Thamnophilidae)

How ecologically similar species are able to coexist has always generated great interest in the scientific community. Classical niche theory predicts that species coexistence is only possible when they segregate in at least one dimension of the ecological niche, thus leading to ecological differentiation among species. However, recent work has shown that species that are more similar in some ecological traits are the ones more prone to be able to coexist (environmental filter). The knowledge of how these forces act shaping ecological communities can reveal co-existence strategies, providing important information for management and conservation of the species. This study tested these hypotheses using a pair of coexisting species of Herpsilochmus, H. pectoralis and H. sellowi. In this study I use high resolution (50 x 50 m) ecological niche models to Identify which environmental factors best predict species occurrence. Next, I calculate the overlap in habitat use by species and build null models to test the hypothesis of spatial niche segregation. In addition, I obtain the selectivity parameters of habitat use to test whether the species H. pectoralis (larger body size) is less selective than H. sellowi (smaller body size) as stated in the literature for other species. The results reject the ecological equivalence among species, revealing that the species of Herpsilochmus explore the habitat differently, having different environmental niches. The hypothesis of environmental filter was not observed in my analysis, the observed overlap in habitat use among species was lower than expected by chance. Evidence that Herpsilochmus are spatially segregating reinforces the hypothesis of interspecific competition as the predominant force in the selection of microhabitat of the species. However, more data and experiments are necessary to state categorically that the observed pattern is a result of current or past competition

Avaliação dos impactos do programa bolsa família na renda, na educação e no mercado de trabalho das famílias pobres do Brasil

This study aims to verify the impact of the Bolsa Família Program (BFP) in income and school attendance of poor Brazilian families. It is intended to also check the existence of a possible negative effect of the program on the labor market, titled as sloth effect. For such, microdata from the IBGE Census sample in 2010 were used. Seeking to purge possible selection biases, methodology of Quantilic Treatment Effect (QTE) was applied, in particular the estimator proposed by Firpo (2007), which assumes an exogenous and non-conditional treatment. Moreover, Foster- Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) index was calculated to check if there are fewer households below the poverty line, as well as if the inequality among the poor decreases. Human Opportunity Index (HOI) was also calculated to measure the access of young people / children education. Results showed that BFP has positively influenced the family per capita income and education (number of children aged 5-17 years old attending school). As for the labor market (worked hours and labor income), the program showed a negative effect. Thus, when compared with not benefiting families, those families who receive the BFP have: a) a higher family income (due to the shock of the transfer budget money) b) more children attending school (due to the conditionality imposed by the program); c) less worked hours (due to sloth effect in certain family groups) and d) a lower income from work. All these effects were potentiated separating the sample in the five Brazilian regions, being observed that the BFP strongly influenced the Northeast, showing a greater decrease in income inequality and poverty, and at the same time, achieved a greater negative impact on the labor market