Labor earnings dynamics in post-stabilization Brazil

This paper analyzes both the levels and evolution of wage inequality in the Brazilian formal labor market using administrative data from the Brazilian Ministry of Labor (RAIS) from 1994 to 2009. After the covariance structure of the log of real weekly wages is estimated and the variance of the log of real weekly wages is decomposed into its permanent and transitory components, we verify that nearly 60% of the inequality within age and education groups is explained by the permanent component, i.e., by time-invariant individual productive characteristics. During this period, wage inequality decreased by 29%. In the rst years immediately after the macroeconomic stabilization (1994

Why the ‘Rest’ doesn’t need foreign finance

The Rest will be able to catch up and grow faster than the West only if it goes against a “received truth”, namely that capital-rich countries should transfer their capital to capital-poor countries. This intuitive truth is the mantra that the West cites to justify its occupation of the markets of developing countries with its finance and its multinationals. Classical Developmentalism successfully criticized the unequal exchange involved in trade liberalization, but it didn’t succeed in criticizing foreign finance. This task has been recently achieved by New Developmentalism and its developmental macroeconomics, which shows that countries will invest and grow more if they don’t run current account deficits, even when these deficits are financed by foreign direct investment

The distortion of currencies misalignments on trade Instruments: or why currencies wars are not over

The negotiations of mega agreements between the US and the Pacific countries (TPP) and between the US and the EU (TTIP) are raising the attention of experts on international trade law and economics. TPP and TTIP are proclaimed to be the designers of the rules for the XXI Century. Old trade instruments such as tariffs are said to be no more important for TTIP because tariffs are negligible among those partners but significant to for TPP. Another relevant agreement in negotiation is between the EU and Mercosul, where tariffs are the most important issue in discussion. The main purpose of this paper is to shows that tariff are important for all these agreements, not because of its nominal value, but because the impacts of exchange rate misalignments on tariffs are so significant that all concessions can be distorted by overvalued and by devaluated currencies. The article is divided into several sections: the first gives an introduction to the issue; the second explains the methodologies used to determine exchange rate misalignments and also presents some results for Brazil, US and China; the third summarizes the methodology applied to calculate the impacts of exchange rate misalignments on the level of tariff protection through an exercise of “misalignment tariffication” and examines the effects of exchange rate variations on tariffs and their consequences for the multilateral trading system; the fourth creates a methodology to estimate exchange rates against a basket of currencies (a virtual currency of the World) and a proposal to deal with persistent and significant misalignments related to trade rules. The fifth presents some estimates for the main PTAs. The conclusions are present in the last section

A note on financial regulation and the brazilian response to the 2008‐09 financial crisis

Brazil was frequently criticized for its interventionist and heavy financial regulation up until the 2008‐09 world financial crisis.  According to the neo‐liberal or pro‐market view that predominated in academic and financial circles during the early 2000s, economic development came together with financial deepening, which in its turn could only be achieved through financial liberalization and deregulation. The currency crises of the 1990s notwithstanding, by the mid‐2000s Brazil’s segmented financial market and its restrictive reserve and capital requirements were seen as a symbol of inefficiency and backwardness by most financial specialists.  To the luck of the Brazilian population, most of the advices of such specialists were ignored by the Brazilian authorities, so that, when the 2008 financial crisis hit the world economy, Brazil still had powerful and efficient instruments to deal with the problem.  The objective of this note is to present the mains aspects of the Brazilian financial regulation and how they helped the economy to deal with the consequences of 2008‐09 financial meltdown.

Brazilian competitiveness on international trade

In recent years, Brazil benefited from foreign trade expansion and its exports of goods grew by 16.5%. If this strong growth trend keeps up for the next years, today’s bottlenecks may have a negative impact on the competitiveness of the country’s products in the global market. This is especially critical for one of the main “green fuels” producers in a scenario where the demand for this energy source grows due to rising oil prices and environmental concerns. Based on a survey that collected data from 250 Brazilian exporters, this study focuses on the constraints that reduce the competitiveness of exports. This study differs from previous ones in that it considers the professionals directly involved with export activities and evaluates different aspects, including logistics, operations, taxes, legal, bureaucratic and informational ones. Results show that the most important constraints strongly affect costs and delivery reliability

Phylogeography and Pleistocene demographic history of the endangered marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus) from the Rio de la Plata Basin

The marsh deer is the largest neotropical cervid with morphological and ecological adaptations to wetlands and riparian habitats. Historically, this now endangered species occupied habitats along the major river basins in South America, ranging from southern Amazonia into northern Argentina to the Parana river delta. This particularly close association with wetlands makes marsh deer an excellent species for studying the effects of Pleistocene climatic changes on their demographic and phylogeographic patterns. We examined mitochondrial DNA variation in 127 marsh deer from 4 areas distributed throughout the Rio de]a Plata basin. We found 17 haplotypes in marsh deer from Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina that differed by 1-8 substitutions in a 601 bp fragment of mitochondrial control region sequence, and 486 bp of cytochrome b revealed only 3 variable sites that defined 4 haplotypes. Phylogeny and distribution of control region haplotypes suggest that populations close to the Pantanal area in central Brazil underwent a rapid population expansion and that this occurred approximately 28,000-25,000 years BP. Paleoclimatic data from this period suggests that there was a dramatic increase for precipitation in the medium latitudes in South America and these conditions may have fostered marsh deer's population growth.

Economia verde: a reiteração de ideias à espera de ações

A Iniciativa Economia Verde, numa perspectiva de análise teórica, é uma reiteração de velhas ideias; não é propriamente um novo conceito, mas sim a proposta de um conjunto de instrumentos para o alcance do desenvolvimento sustentável. Uma novidade importante dessa inciativa é a defesa do ativismo de políticas de indução às mudanças tecnológicas ambientais, o que revela sua aproximação com a economia evolucionária. No plano da economia política internacional, o potencial de conflito Norte-Sul sobre a Iniciativa Economia Verde se vincula aos impasses registrados nas negociações sobre liberalização do comércio de bens e serviços ambientais na Rodada Doha da OMC.

Delays in stabilization or in reforms? The debt crisis

Empirical analyses attributing the 1980s' debt crisis to inconsistent stabilization policies rest on an inappropriate long-run approach. Revising this long-run approach yields opposite results: terms of trade shocks and foreign indebtedness explain this crisis, regardless of domestic stabilization policies. This prompts us to consider a new hypothesis, of delays in trade-policy reforms, with a model in which terms-of-trade variation (under shocks) is endogenous to export structure and efficiency of resource allocation. Evidence from the structural equations model shows that allocation distortions negatively affect changes in terms of trade, which then explain this crisis. A political economy extension demonstrates that income inequality and regional trade policy determine the distortions, which in turn leads to this crisis.

Comércio internacional e meio ambiente: estímulo à produção sustentável ou mero protecionismo comercial a posição do Brasil em dois casos de litígio

The World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1994 as a result of the Uruguay Round, and has as its principal aim advocate for the maintenance of free trade between nations. The preamble of its Constitutive Agreement specifically cites as an institution the goal of achieving sustainable development and the pursuit of protecting and preserving the environment, bringing into the sphere of world trade the idea that concern for the environmental cause is not restricted only the group of environmentalists, but rather has entered the economic landscape in a way not only ideological, but also pragmatic. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947, part of the GATT 1994, contains a device that allows the adoption of trade restrictive measures, provided that such measures aimed at protecting the environment - Article XX. The Settlement Body (DSB) is part of the WTO and acts in dissolving disputes between the countries motivated by trade. It examines two cases where countries have imposed restrictive trade measures with environmental justification. The first case was closed in 1996, with award of damages given to Brazil, on the breakdown of U.S. environmental legislation imposed on imported gasoline from Brazil - and the second, begun in 2005 and closed in 2007, coming out victorious again Brazil is on the import ban on retreaded tires to Brazil. The objective is to answer the question: how the environment is treated in the midst of trade discussions - which is aimed at its protection or its use with economic objectives in disguise? For the preparation of this work, extensive documentary research was undertaken with the virtual site of the WTO to review the entire production of legal cases and subsequent analysis of the key issue for the work, and literature of authors who have studied the tense relationship between trade international environment. The first case, it could be seen that the political movement performed by the U.S. with the aim of achieving acceptable standards of air quality was an institutional effort to ensure the quality of air, and thus would be inappropriate to say that the regulation of gasoline was merely a disguised trade barrier.However, a careful analysis of the implementation and operation of gasoline regulation may reveal intentions disguised trade and U.S. environmental argument did not hold. The weight of this environment was relegated, since there were clearly outside interests to the environmental cause. The second case, it was realized that, despite clear attempts by the EC to promote ecological dumping, send when brought to Brazil, supposedly a country with weaker environmental structure on surveillance, a residue that, pursuant to internal policies, as could not be sent to their own landfills, the Brazilian discourse remained focused on the environmental cause, and this sort there was the existence of disguised trade barriers, but of importance, at least a priori, the discussion of foreign forces on the environment environment because there is no way to legally justify the reversal of the total understanding of the first judging body, the sight of all the arguments presented by Brazil and the nonsubmission of new facts upon appeal. Still, quite heartening to reflect on the role of trade liberalization on the environment in general, because, while they do not reach a definitive conclusion will reveal positions in both directions, both for and against, the that only adds to the discussions and makes this a very fertile topic for future research

Composição e abundância da ictiofauna de duas lagunas costeiras da América do Sul Austral: lagoa do Peixe (31ºS; 51ºW), Brasil e laguna Mar Chiquita (37ºS; 57ºW), Argentina

This article describes and compares the shallow water fish-fauna from two coastal lagoons (Peixe Lagoon, in Brazil, and Mar Chiquita Lagoon, in Argentina). Peixe Lagoon was sampled between 2000 and 2001 using a 9 m beach seine net (12 mm bar mesh in the wings and 5 mm in the centre 3 m section) totalizing 125 samples, which yielded 33,848 individuals and 32 species. Mar Chiquita Lagoon was sampled from 1995 to 1998 using a 21) m beach seine net (12 mm bar mesh) totalizing 232 samples resulting in 31,097 individuals of 28 species. A total of 47 species were observed in both lagoons and 13 were shared. The "marine-estuarine-related" species were similar and dominate the fish assemblages in both lagoons. The remaining species were similar to the species collected along the southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina estuaries. The number of species observed in Peixe Lagoon (S = 32) was higher than in Mar Chiquita Lagoon (S = 28) and is probably associated with a strong latitudinal gradient of species richness increasing from north to south. Considering that the Peixe Lagoon and Mar Chiquita Lagoon are isolated by the large estuaries of Patos Lagoon and Prata River, the composition of the species with low abundance and occasional occurrence were different for each local studied. These results expand the knowledge for the fauna of both sites and help conservation and management from both lagoons.

Molecular epidemiology and evolution of avian infectious bronchitis virus

Mutation and recombination processes are involved in the genetic and phenotypic variations of RNA viruses, leading to the emergence of new variant strains, and give rise to virus population diversity to be modeled by the host, particularly by the immune system, as occurred with infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in chickens. The consequence is a continuous emergence of new IBV variants with regard to pathotypes, serotypes, and protectotypes. Nucleotide sequencing and subsequent genetic analysis of the S1 and N protein gene sequences provide a fast and accurate method to classify and predict IBV genotype, and a powerful instrument to monitor phylogenetic and epidemiological evolution of IBV variants. Despite the use of vaccination programmes, infectious bronchitis has become a serious problem in Brazil. Thus, a significant number of IBV field variants have been identified circulating in the Brazilian commercial poultries between 2000 to 2006 and more recently in Argentina. These viruses seem to be indigenous, because they demonstrated a low genetic relatedness with the majority of the reference strains from North America, Europe and Asia, but were moderately to highly related one to another. In summary, indigenous field IBV variants were evolving and circulating in the field in Brazil and Argentina, and should be considered as initial candidates for protection against current IBV infectious in chickens. However, in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to determine the pathogenicity and immunogenecity of these new isolates, before defining a new vaccine strain.

The debt crisis: a re-appraisal

The 1980s' debt crisis is a landmark in developing economies' growth and stabilization. According to the most quoted empirical articles, external shocks and vicissitudes gave rise to crisis just because of delays in stabilization policies, engendered by internal conflicts and institutional immaturity. I review some of these papers, and find out some problems - in the measurement of shocks and foreign indebtedness, namely - whose corrections lead to opposite results: external shocks and foreign indebtedness explain that crisis regardless of domestic policies. At the same time, the strong correlation of income distribution to terms of trade changes and foreign indebtedness suggest that inequality may have contributed differently to that crisis: either through an economic channel, or through a political channel based on delays in reforms.

Biological and DNA evidence of two dissimilar populations of the Rhipicephalus sanguineus tick group (Acari : Ixodidae) in South America

In this work, the biology, mitochondrial DNA and fertility of hybrids from two strains of Rhipicephalus sanguineus, from Brazil and Argentina, were compared. Engorged larvae, nymphs and adults from Argentina weighed more and the engorgement period of adult females was significantly longer than those of their Brazilian counterparts, whereas adult female tick yield rate was higher for the Brazilian strain. High intraspecific divergence of mitochondrial DNA was detected between R. sanguineus from Brazil and Argentina. on the other hand, a strong genetic relationship was detected between European and Argentinean R. sanguineus populations while the Brazilian population appeared to be related to the African Rhipicephalus turanicus. Adult hybrid females laid eggs, which were mostly unviable, whereas a mean of more than 1400 larvae hatched per egg mass from pure Brazilian and Argentinean strains. These results showed that differences between these strains are greater than previously assumed and that the biosysternatic status of R. sanguineus ticks from South America should be re-evaluated. Wide variations, such as these might account for the reported worldwide differences in biology and vector capacity of this species. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Geographic range, habitats, and host plants of bromeliad-living jumping spiders (Salticidae)

Although spiders are a very diverse group on vegetation, their associations with plants are poorly known. Some salticid species specifically use Bromeliaceae as host plants in some regions of South America. In this study, I report the geographic range of these spider-bromeliad associations, and whether the spiders inhabit particular bromeliad species and vegetation types, as well as open areas or interior of forests. Nine salticid species were found to be associated with up to 23 bromeliad species in cerrados (savanna-like vegetation), semideciduous and seasonal forests, coastal sand dune vegetation, restingas, inselbergs, highland forests, chacos, and rain forests at 47 localities in Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina. Some species were typically specialists, inhabiting almost exclusively one bromeliad species over a large geographic range (e.g., Psecas chapoda on Bromelia balansae), whereas others were generalists, occurring on up to 7-8 bromeliad species (e.g., Psecas sp., Eustiromastix nativo, and Coryphasia sp. 1). The regional availability of bromeliad species among habitats may explain this pattern of host plant use. More jumping spiders were found on bromeliads in open areas than on bromeliads in the interior of forests. These results show that several jumping spider species may be strictly associated with the Bromeliaceae in the Neotropics. This is one of the few studies to show host-specific associations for spiders on a particular plant type over a wide geographic range.

A new Pennsylvanian Oriocrassatellinae from Brazil and the distribution of the genus Oriocrassatella in space and time

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)