O que é um teatro municipal? : estudo de caso

O atual panorama dos teatros municipais do país configurou-se, sobretudo, a partir de finais da década de 1990, com iniciativas do governo central e do governo local. A diversidade de gestão desses equipamentos culturais leva a refletir sobre o conceito de teatro municipal. Neste trabalho de projeto, propõe-se uma definição do conceito de teatro municipal e uma análise do caso do Teatro Municipal Joaquim Benite em Almada. Apresenta-se também uma análise da programação para os anos de 2007 a 2012.

Instrumentos de políticas públicas do turismo: uma análise empírica dos municípios portugueses

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Administração

Preschool education in Brazil: does public supply crowd out private enrollment?

Expanding access to preschool education is a particularly important policy issue in developing countries, where enrollment rates are generally much lower, and where private institutions constitute a much larger share of the formal preschool sector, than in developed countries. This paper examines if an expansion in the supply of public preschool crowds-out private enrollment using rich data for municipalities in Brazil from 2000 to 2006, where federal transfers to local governments change discontinuously with given population thresholds. Results from a regression-discontinuity design reveal that larger federal transfers lead to a significant expansion of local public preschool services, but show no evidence of crowding-out of private enrollment, nor of negative impacts on the quality of private providers. This finding is consistent with a theory in which households differ in willingness-to-pay for preschool services, and private suppliers optimally adjust prices in response to an expansion of lower-quality, free-of-charge public supply. In the context of the model, the absence of crowding-out effects of more public preschool providers can be rationalized by the existence of relatively large differences in willingness-to-pay for preschool services across different demand segments. Our theoretical and empirical findings therefore suggest that in developing country settings characterized by relatively high income inequality, an expansion in public preschool supply will likely significantly increase enrollment among the poorest segments of society, and need not have adverse effects on the quantity or quality of local private supply.

Schistosomiasis control in China

After three decades' efforts, schistosomiasis japonica were controlled in one-third (4/12) of endemic provinces and 68.2 (259/380) of endemic counties throughout the country. The remaining 121 endemic counties are located primarily in the lake and mountainous regions. The epidemiological and ecological features of the lake and mountainous areas are different from the other endemic areas. The major schistosomiasis control efforts in China can be characterized as follows: (1) Application of centralized leadership and management, since schistosomiasis control is a task not only of the Ministry of Public Health, but also of all local governments in the endemic areas; (2) Integration of actions taken by various departments or bureaus, such as agriculture, water conservation and public health; (3) Promotion of mass participation; (4) Organization of strong professional teams; (5) Raising sufficient funds. Strategies on schistosomiasis control applied in different areas are divided into three levels: (1) In the areas where the schistosomiasis has been successfully controlled, surveillance must be maintained and immediate action should be taken where new infections occur and/or vector snails are found, so that control can be reestablished quickly; (2) In the areas where schistosomiasis has been partially controlled, any residents and/or live-stock infected should be examined and treated promptly with due care, and environment modifying and/or mollusciding must be used to eliminate the remaining snails; (3) In the areas where transmission has not been controlled, the main strategy is to control morbidity. Mass or selective chemotherapy with praziquental should be applied to both infected persosns and the live-stock, and environment modification for the snail-ridden areas should be taken but should be coordinated with agriculture where possible. Advance cases must be treated; and epidemics of Katayama fever prevented; water supply and sanitation shoud be improved and health education emphasized. Annual mass or selective chemotherapy with praziquental both reduces the prevalence rate and decreases the intensity of the infection for inhabitants and live-stock. As a consequence of the therapy a low prevalence rate can be obtained in a short time. The length of such arrangement period can be decided in accordance with the prevalence of the infection before the drug program is begun. Therefore,a maintenance phase is urgently needed. As China's ecomony expands and people's living standard rises, schistosomiasis will be controlled more effectively and successfully.

Análisis de la relación entre la formación y el empleo en el caso de las trabajadoras en el cuidado en domicilio de personas en situación de dependencia

El proyecto de investigación desarrollado durante el período de la beca se inserta en el marco del proyecto de investigación titulado "Especialidad de formación, especialidad de empleo y resultados de inserción laboral" (ESFOREM). La primera línea de investigación desarrollada se centró en el análisis macroestadístico de la relación entre la formación y el empleo en el caso de los jóvenes españoles a partir del análisis estadísitico de los datos proporcionados por la Encuesta ETEFIL (INE, 2005). El propósito de la investigación era cotejar en qué medida los jóvenes con nivel educativo no universitario estaban trabajando de aquello para lo cual se habían formado específicamente según el Catálogo Nacional de Cualificaciones (adecuación normativa) y hasta qué punto la no correspondencia entre el empleo (según su nivel y especialidad) y la formación (según su nivel y especialidad) suponía una fracaso respecto a su inserción laboral. Enfoques dominantes sobre la relación entre formación y empleo parten del supuesto normativo de que la correspondencia entre especialidad de formación y especialidad de empleo es la situación óptima y se postula que la dinámica del mercado de trabajo tiende a propiciarla. El proyecto ESFOREM tenía una segunda línea de investigación que planteaba un análisis cualitativo de dos subsectores específicos. Esta tesis doctoral se inserta en la segunda línea de investigación desarrollada y tiene como propósito analizar y explicar, mediante una estrategia de investigación cualitativa un caso específico de modalidad de relación en la que no existe correspondencia entre formación y empleo, de forma tal de poder analizar y explicar el papel activo que los agentes e instituciones tienen en la configuración de la relación. El caso seleccionado ha sido del "empleo de cuidado en domicilio depersonas en situación de dependencia", con el objetivo de contribuir a profundizar en el estudio de un sector de empleo que es cada vez más emergente y que está fuertemente feminizado. Dicho estudio se realiza a nivel comparado y municipal entre Montevideo y Barcelona.

Decentralization, happiness and the perception of institutions

This paper analyses whether the different powers and resources at the disposal of local and regional governments across Europe deliver greater satisfaction with political institutions and lead to greater personal happiness. The analysis uses microdata from the four available waves of the European social survey (2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008), including more than 160,000 observations of individuals living in 29 European countries. Our results reveal that political and fiscal decentralization have a positive and significant effect on individuals’ overall happiness. Fiscal decentralization also exerts a significant effect on the level of satisfaction with political and economic institutions and with the education and health systems, whereas the effect of political decentralization on these variables is more limited. The results show that citizens seem to be happier with the actual capacity of their local governments to deliver than with the general principle that they can have a say on their daily politics and policies. Keywords: Happiness, well-being, satisfaction, fiscal and political decentralization, Europe. JEL codes: H11, H77

Corruption and decentralization : what economists have to say about it

This paper deals with both theoretical and empirical aspects of the link between corruption and decentralization in both developing and emerging countries. Only mixed results can be drawn from the literature. Decentralization can help discipline "predative" governments, but only under certain conditions. Indeed, it depends on fiscal arrangements and political features that are likely to be different between countries. The way incentives to local governments are designed by the central governments also plays an essential role.

Malaria: une espèce en voie de disparition [Malaria: an endangered species?].

The implementation at scale of preventive measures and the use of effective treatments in populations living in endemic areas has led to a drastic reduction of the burden of malaria in all continents. The considerable investment of international agencies to support local governments in the fight against malaria allows hoping to achieve the millennium goals for malaria and child mortality in several countries. Malaria elimination, and even eradication becomes a realistic objective, especially so because a vaccine may be soon available to complement the armamentarium. For travelers, the tendency will be to reduce the number of countries where chemoprophylaxis or stand-by treatment is recommended and to insist on the rigorous use of measures to prevent mosquito bites such as repellents and insecticide-impregnated bednets.

Prime Property Institutions for a Subprime Era: Exploring Innovative Models of Residential Development and Finance

This paper breaks new ground toward contractual and institutional innovation in models of homeownership, equity building, and mortgage enforcement. Inspired by recent developments in the affordable housing sector and in other types of public financing schemes, this paper suggests extending institutional and financial strategies such as timeand place-based division of property rights, conditional subsidies, and credit mediation to alleviate the systemic risks of mortgage foreclosure. Alongside a for-profit shared equity scheme that would be led by local governments, we also outline a private market shared equity model, one of bootstrapping home buying with purchase options.

Government Spending and Re-election

Does additional government spending improve the electoral chances of incumbent political parties? This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on this question. Our research design exploits discontinuities in federal funding to local governments in Brazil around several population cutoffs over the period 1982-1985. We find that extra fiscal transfers resulted in a 20% increase in local government spending per capita, and an increase of about 10 percentage points in the re-election probability of local incumbent parties. We also find positive effects of the government spending on education outcomes and earnings, which we interpret as indirect evidence of public service improvements. Together, our results provide evidence that electoral rewards encourage incumbents to spend part of additional revenues on public services valued by voters, a finding in line with agency models of electoral accountability.

Are rules-based government programs shielded from special-interest politics? Evidence from revenue-sharing transfers in Brazil

Manipulation of government finances for the benefit of narrowly defined groups is usuallythought to be limited to the part of the budget over which politicians exercise discretion inthe short run, such as earmarks. Analyzing a revenue-sharing program between the centraland local governments in Brazil that uses an allocation formula based on local population estimates,I document two main results: first, that the population estimates entering the formulawere manipulated and second, that this manipulation was political in nature. Consistent withswing-voter targeting by the right-wing central government, I find that municipalities withroughly equal right-wing and non-right-wing vote shares benefited relative to opposition orconservative core support municipalities. These findings suggest that the exclusive focus ondiscretionary transfers in the extant empirical literature on special-interest politics may understatethe true scope of tactical redistribution that is going on under programmatic disguise.

Audit risk and rent extraction: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Brazil

We report results from a randomized policy experiment designed to test whether increasedaudit risk deters rent extraction in local public procurement and service delivery in Brazil. Ourestimates suggest that temporarily increasing annual audit risk by about 20 percentage pointsreduced the proportion of irregular local procurement processes by about 17 percentage points.This reduction was driven entirely by irregularities involving mismanagement or corruption. Incontrast, we find no evidence that increased audit risk affected the quality of publicly providedpreventive and primary health care services -measured based on user satisfaction surveys- orcompliance with national regulations of the conditional cash transfer program "Bolsa Família".

Judicial presence and rent extraction

We estimate the effect of state judiciary presence on rent extraction in Brazilian local governments.We measure rents as irregularities related to waste or corruption uncovered by auditors.Our unique dataset at the level of individual inspections allows us to separately examine extensiveand intensive margins of rent extraction. The identification strategy is based on an institutionalrule of state judiciary branches according to which prosecutors and judges tend to be assigned tothe most populous among contiguous counties forming a judiciary district. Our research designexploits this rule by comparing counties that are largest in their district to counties with identicalpopulation size from other districts in the same state, where they are not the most populous. IVestimates suggest that state judiciary presence reduces the share of inspections with irregularitiesrelated to waste or corruption by about 10 percent or 0.3 standard deviations. In contrast, we findno effect on the intensive margin of rent extraction. Finally, our estimates suggest that judicialpresence reduces rent extraction only for first-term mayors.

Prime property institutions for a subprime era: Toward innovative models of homeownership

This Article breaks new ground toward contractual and institutional innovation in models of homeownership, equity building, and mortgage enforcement. Inspired by recent developments in the affordable housing sector and other types of public financing schemes, we suggest extending institutional and financial strategies such as time- and place-based division of property rights, conditional subsidies, and credit mediation to alleviate the systemic risks of mortgage foreclosure. Two new solutions offer a broad theoretical basis for such developments in the economic and legal institution of homeownership: a for-profit shared equity scheme led by local governments alongside a private market shared equity model, one of "bootstrapping home buying with purchase options".

Fiscal decentralization policies and sub-national government debt in evolving federations

As part of a process of democratization, many countries spanning Europe, Latin Amertica, Africa, and Asia are reorganizing their governments bydevolving fiscal responsibility and authority to newly empowered regionaland local governments. Although decentralization in each country proceedsdifferently, a common element tends to be an initially heavy relianceon central government grants to fund regional spending. We develop atheoretical model of regional borrowing decisions in which the incentivesfor regional borrowing depend crucially on how the regions expect thefederal system of finance to evolve. We examine the implications of themodel using data on Spanish regions for the period 1984-1995 and findevidence that regions may be borrowing inefficiently in response toincentives imbedded in the Spanish system of fiscal decentralization.