Adolfo Sachsida

The impact of transnational terrorism on U.S. foreign direct investment

This article investigates the extent to which transnational terrorist attacks altered U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI). Time-series intervention analysis shows that 9/11 generally had little lasting influence on U.S. FDI flows. Only a few countries that experienced subsequent terrorist attacks displayed a post-9/11 drop in U.S. FDI flows, which, except for Turkey, was not long-lived. For a panel of countries, this study also examines the effect that terrorist attacks against U.S. interests had on the stock of U.S. FDI. Based on a methodology previously applied to the study of U.S. assets abroad, we find that such attacks had a significant, but small, impact on these stocks in OECD countries. Greece and Turkey displayed the largest declines—5.7 percent and 6.5 percent of their average U.S. FDI stocks, respectively. There was no such effect for non-OECD countries. Terrorist efforts to limit U.S. FDI have been cost-effective.

Business Cycle Fluctuations in Brazil

This paper documents the empirical relationship in postwar Brazil between the GNP and other key variables such as consumption, investment, productivity and hours worked. Since many of those series were not available to Brazil we also had to build a data-set, which includes consumption of non-durables, capital and hours worked. We use two filters to extract the cycles (the usual Hodrick-Prescott filter and a band-pass filter); this procedure was taken to avoid conclusions that depend too much on the filter in use. The paper also provides simulations of two dynamic general equilibrium models (the standard RBC model and the indivisible labor model) and tries to match the facts of the artificial economy with those of the actual economy. We show that the basic models fail to replicate some of the observed facts.

Race and gender discrimination in the labor market: an urban and rural sector analysis for Brazil

The article investigates the existence of discrimination in the urban and rural labor markets in Brazil. Tests the hypothesis that returns to education are different for black and white workers, male and female, in the urban and rural sectors. The methodology used allows for the decomposition of the difference in the mean earnings of male and female workers in the urban and rural sectors in a share that can be explained by characteristics such as education, hours of work and experience, and in another share that reflects the existence of discrimination. The analysis is carried out with microdata from the National Household Surveys (PNADs) of 1992 and 1998. The choice of the period of analysis was made with the aim of investigating whether changes in the economic environment affect the standard of returns to education. The results suggest the existence of strong discrimination by gender and race, besides the presence of substantial wage differentials between urban and rural workers.

A study on the valuing of biodiversity: the case of three endangered species in Brazil

Abstract Using the analysis developed by Montgomery et al. (J. Environ. Econ. Manage., 1999) as a starting point, this study establishes the bounds limits to the management price for the conservation of biodiversity. This means, how much the household would be willing to pay to finance a conservation program for three endangered species in Brazil. This program must be restricted to the change in habitat with regard to public benefits associated with biodiversity. Here, this increment in habitat means the marginal benefit derived from the increase in the size of the population. An important point of this paper is that we work with the robust instrument called the Population Viability Analysis (PVA) that estimates the survival probability of the species in the future given a current exogenous disturbance. We show that the results are very sensitive to the parameters of the model, mainly the populations current size and the degree of diversity. We also show that the total amount spent on conservation in Brazil is below the socially optimal level, considering only the three species analyzed in this study.

Uncovered interest parity and the peso problem: the Brazilian case

The uncovered interest parity (UIP) test for Brazil is presented from the standpoint of rational expectations hypothesis. The period is January 1984 to October 1998. The econometric tests validate the UIP just for the sub-period January 1990 to June 1994. The result suggests fail with the UIP in the Real Plan, validating the theoretical point proposed by Krasker.

Population and Income: Is There a Puzzle?

Abstract This note presents wide evidence on the relationship between population and income for 125 countries for which data was available for the period 1950–2000. The main result is that there is a weak but negative relationship between population growth and per capita GDP, as income increases population expands at a slower rate. This relationship appears to be stronger for African countries and for Asian countries before 1970.

Uncovered Interest Parity in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico: A Unit Root Test Application with Panel Data

The aim of this study was to test uncovered interest parities for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, for the January 1990-December 2001 period, with the use of the rational expectation hypothesis.We also intend to evaluate the degree of mobility of foreign capital in these political jurisdictions, using panel data estimations, with unit root tests proposed by Levin and Lin (1992), and Im, Pesaran and Shin (1997). The econometric results indicate the rejection of uncovered interest parity (UIP), for the period under study, for the group consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. However, the UIP hypothesis is not rejected for the group consisting of Argentina, Chile, and Mexico for the January 1991-December 2000 period.

Inflação, desemprego e choques cambiais: uma revisão da literatura sobre a curva de phillips no Brasil

Este estudo faz uma ampla revisao da literatura sobre a curva de Phillips no Brasil. De maneira geral, os resultados descritos na literatura nacional se mostraram muito sensiveis ao periodo analisado, ao conjunto de proxies adotadas, ao instrumental econometrico empregado, bem como a frequencia e ao numero de defasagens permitidas para as variaveis. Tais resultados lancam duvidas sobre a adequacao da curva de Phillips para descrever a dinâmica inflacionaria da economia brasileira. This article summarizes the studies about the Phillips curve in the Brazilian economy. Overall, the results are very sensitive to the time period, to the proxies adopted, to the econometric approach, and to the frequency and lags allowed to the variables. These results cast some doubts about the ability of the Phillips curve to describe the dynamics of inflation in the Brazilian economy.

Ricardian Equivalence, Lucas Critic and Exogeneity Tests

This article suggests an alternative approach, nested in exogeneity tests, to test the Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis. The intuitive appeal and the sophisticated statistical method are the advantages of this new procedure. Furthermore, it is argued against the use of the value of correlation parameter to make any inference about the Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis.

The Effects of Monetary Policy in Brazil: Results from Agnostic Identification

This article investigates the effects of monetary policy shocks in the Brazilian economy through the period of July/1999 to January/2008. We follow the procedures suggested by Uhlig (2005) to verify the impact of the monetary policy shock over both inflation and output. The main consequences of a contractionary monetary policy shock are: instantaneous real GDP declines that are large in magnitude; and a drop of 0.4 percent in the price index (IPCA) during the first five months after the shock.