Arilton Teixeira

Barriers to entry and development

We ask whether barriers to entry are a quantitatively important reason for the income gap between developing countries and the United States. We develop a tractable general equilibrium model that captures the effects of barriers to entry and the other main distortions typically considered in the development literature. We carry our model to the data and ask it to match the main development facts from the Penn World Table. We find that this requires large barriers to entry in developing countries, which account for about half of the income gap with the United States.

Monopoly Rights Can Reduce Income Big Time

We ask which part of the observed cross-country differences in the level of per capita income can be accounted for by monopoly rights in the labour market. We answer this question in a calibrated growth model with two final goods sectors. The novel feature being that monopoly rights in the capital-producing sector shield insiders from competition by outsiders and permit coalitions of insiders to choose inefficient technologies or working practices. We find that monopoly rights can lead to quantitatively much larger reductions in the level of per capita income than previously demonstrated. This comes about because they do not only reduce TFP in capital-producing sector but also increase the relative price of capital. This reduces the capital-labour ratio in the whole economy. The implied predictions about the price of capital goods relative to consumption goods and the investment share in output are quantitatively consistent with the cross-country facts.

The Role of Transportation in U.S. Economic Development: 1840–1860

We return to two questions concerning the 19th century U.S. transportation revolution. First, to what extent were transportation improvements responsible for the large changes in the regional distribution of population in the United States and, within regions, for the changes in industry structure? Second, how important were transportation improvements for welfare gains? We find that transport improvements were the key factor driving where people lived and what industry they worked in. We also find that transport improvements were important for welfare gains: Gains over 1840–1860 would have been only half as large if there had been no transportation improvements.

The impacts of trade blocks and tax reforms on the Brazilian economy

This paper uses a general equilibrium model to evaluate the impacts of trade agreements and tax reforms on the Brazilian economy. The model predicts that welfare gains will happen whether Argentina reduces the tariffs it places on Brazilian products or the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is implemented. However, the FTAA engenders larger welfare gains. These gains will be even larger if the FTAA is implemented simultaneously to a reduction on domestic consumption taxes. These findings suggest that most of the gains come from the reduction of Brazilian tariff and tax rates.

O Efeito da Desigualdade da Distribuição de Renda no Crescimento Econômico

Esta pesquisa buscou identificar o efeito da desigualdade no crescimento no Brasil, de forma a mitigar o problema de comparabilidade presente nas pesquisas cross-country. O metodo econometrico System-GMM foi comparado as estimativas obtidas em um painel dinâmico a partir de outras tres tecnicas econometricas (MQO, Efeitos-Fixos e GMM), com vistas a obtencao de um estimador consistente frente a endogeneidade existente na relacao entre crescimento e desigualdade. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que nao se pode rejeitar as hipoteses de nao-linearidade entre desigualdade e crescimento, de incompletude dos mercados de credito e o argumento de que politicas redistributivas mitigam o crescimento.

A Signal of Altruistic Motivation for Foreign Aid: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Test

We develop a theoretical model showing that countercyclical transfers from a wealthy donor to a poorer recipient generate a signal of altruistic donor motivation. Using OECD foreign aid (ODA) data we find the signal present in approximately one-sixth of a large set of donor-recipient pairs. We then undertake two out-of-model exercises to validate the signal: a logit regression of signal determinants and the growth effects of ODA from signal-positive pairs compared to non-signal bearers. The logit indicates our signal meaningfully distinguishes donor-recipient pairs by characteristics typically associated with altruism. The growth exercise shows ODA from signal bearers displays stronger reverse causation and more positive long-run effects. These results contribute to understanding, and control for, endogeneity in the distribution of ODA.

Effects of Pre-Salt Regulation on the Market Value of Petrobras

ABSTRACT This article measures the impacts of the process of pre-salt development related to new regulations in Brazil applicable to the offshore pre-salt hydrocarbon reserves. For this purpose, Bai and Perron (2003) and Chow (1960) tests were used to identify structural breakpoints in the behavior of the price of Petrobras stock through a model that includes the ratio of the stock prices of Vale and Petrobras, and the proven oil reserves of Petrobras from 2000 to 2014. The results indicated structural breakpoints in the period of regulation change and when Petrobras issued new shares to raise funds for pre-salt development.

EFEITO DA VOLATILIDADE DA TAXA DE CÂMBIO NO CRESCIMENTO ECONÔMICO BRASILEIRO

This study aims to capture accurately the effect of volatility of the exchange rate on growth. Following the literature, the analysis was performed in a developing country, intending to identify the direct effect of volatility on growth. Unlike the majority of prior empirical research, it was performed an analysis in a single country aiming to mitigate data comparability issues. We chose to Brazil because it is the country most notably among the BRICs, according to the OECD, and a research suggests that historical series correlated with growth have similar behavior to that observed in the world. Volatility was measured by eight distinct metrics and growth was measured by two metrics. The regressions were estimated by the Generalized Method of Moments, due to its better properties of small samples and to address endogeneity issues. The results of this study suggest that exchange rate volatility negatively affects growth.

INFLUÊNCIA DOS GASTOS PÚBLICOS SOCIAIS SOBRE O PIB DOS MUNICÍPIOS DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAIS DOI – 10.5752/P.1984-6606.2014v14n35p112

Este artigo tem como objetivo avaliar a influencia dos tipos de gastos sociais (por exemplo, educacao e saude) no PIB per capita dos municipios do estado de Minas Gerais. A intuicao e de que a efetiva utilizacao dos recursos publicos poderia gerar aumento do PIB. Para isso, os tipos de gastos foram analisados de forma agrupada e individualizada com defasagens de ate 3 anos em relacao ao PIB per capita municipal, atraves de regressao multipla em dados de painel. Os resultados encontrados nao permitem concluir que os gastos sociais exercem influencia significativa na formacao do PIB per capita dos municipios mineiros, com excecao dos gastos de saude e saneamento.

Effects of trade policy on total factor productivity

This paper examines if trade policy can account for the difference in total factor productivity (TFP) across countries. A two-sector dynamic international-trade model is developed where technological progress is neutral and a coalition of workers can stop the adoption of new technologies. The key findings are the following: (i) With free trade, or tariff, the best technology is always used and TFP is always at its highest value. Under a quota, this is not always the case and TFP is generally below its highest value; (ii) even controlling for difference of skilled labor (or human capital), workers from the quota economy have smaller productivity than workers from the free trade economy.