Marcelo Côrtes Neri

Desigualdade social e saúde no Brasil

This paper studies the relationship between social inequality and health in Brazil. The strategy adopted by the authors was to analyze needs and uses of medical care as well as access to health insurance plans according to income distribution. Determinants of health care consumption were also studied by means of logistic regression. The main source of data was the 1998 National Sample Household Survey of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (PNAD-IBGE). In general, individuals in the lowest income distribution deciles had less access to health insurance, greater need for medical care, and lower consumption of such services. Other determinants of health care consumption were heavily associated with the most privileged social strata (greater access to schooling, water supply, sewerage, electricity, garbage collection, and health insurance) and with factors pointing to the capacity to supply these services in country.

Negócios nanicos, garantias e acesso a crédito

O trabalho realiza uma analise empirica dos determinates do uso de credito a partir de amostra de 50 mil empresas formais e informais por conta propria ou empregadoras ate cinco empregados a partir da Pesquisa Economia Informal Urbana (ECINF) do IBGE. O objetivo e contribuir para o desenvolvimento do credito produtivo popular no Brasil. O mercado de microcredito se revela incipiente: apenas 13,7% dos nanonegocios apresentavam divida pendente, a concentracao dos estoques de divida entre os 10% mais altos valores neste segmento e de 98,5% contra 60,8% do faturamento e 59,4% do lucro. Complementarmente, 7% dos nanonegocios obtiveram acesso a credito nos tres meses anteriores a pesquisa. Apresentamos o padrao de correlacoes do uso do credito produtivo popular com outras variaveis, baseadas em um modelo logistico rodado a partir dos microdados da ECINF. Constatamos que alguns elementos do capital social como participacao em cooperativas, indicadores de formalidade e posse de equipamentos apresentam correlacao significativa com o acesso a credito. Em geral, os resultados sao consistentes com a importância atribuida na literatura a garantias reais e alternativas na obtencao de fontes de financiamento.

Efetividade do "salário mínimo estadual": uma análise via regressões quantílicas para dados longitudinais

Em 2000, o governo federal aprovou uma lei que permitiu aos Estados fixarem pisos salariais acima do salario minimo. Os Estados do Rio de Janeiro e Rio Grande do Sul adotaram tal lei em 2001. Utilizando dados de painel da Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego de 2000 e 2001, encontramos um baixo cumprimento da lei nestes Estados. Adicionalmente, obtivemos evidencias de efeito nulo sobre o nivel de emprego. Estes resultados indicam um alto descumprimento da legislacao devido a uma baixa efetividade da lei, como sugerido pela teoria.

Em busca de incentivos para atrair o trabalhador autônomo para Previdência Social

This paper intends to show that economic incentives can affect the decisions of self-employed people whether to join or not the Brazilian social security system using a Principal-Agent framework. Relaxation of the rules for low income workers to access social security benefits promoted by the Federal Constitution of 1988 provides a laboratory to test such a model. The empirical analysis, however, contradicts the expectations of the theoretical model. There is a general movement of withdrawal from the social security system yet this movement is more pronounced at the richest self-employed group. In theoretical terms, this is explained by a violation of the incentive compatibility constraints. One possible explanation is that the increase in the availability of private pension funds in the market has created competition for the government system.

The responses of child labor, school enrollment, and grade repetition to the loss of parental earnings in Brazil, 1982-1999

The authors evaluate the effects of idiosyncratic shocks to a fathers income on his childrens probability of dropping out of school, entering the labor market, or failing to advance to the next grade level. Their analysis uses a large rotating panel data set containing information on household income and child time use for households in six cities in Brazil between 1982 and 1999. They find that for children aged 10 to 15 in the poorest households, loss of earnings by the household head has adverse consequences on child time in school and chance of promotion, and that these children are more likely to enter employment. Children in higher-income households are not adversely affected. The presumption is that wealthier households can self-insure against income shocks or can borrow to smooth consumption in the face of adverse income shocks. In contrast, poor households must use other means, including child labor, to replace lost labor market earnings of adults in the household.

Sustainable Tourism and Eradication of Poverty (Step): impact assessment of a tourism development program in Brazil

This paper aims to evaluate the social impacts of the Tourism Development Program (Prodetur) in the northeastern town of Porto Seguro, Bahia, Brazil. The method used is based on the difference in difference technique applied to the 1991 and 2000 Census microdata. The results suggest social advances following from poverty relief based on income — where the benefits are distributed, generally, in a relatively equal manner between the native and migrant population. There is a relative deterioration in the sanitary situation, which consists of a very serious problem in the mid- and long-term, whose costs are mostly borne by the native population. Therefore, maintaining the natural capital is the main aspect that distances Porto Seguro’s tourism supply from the concept of sustainability. The article also relies on difference in difference estimators to assess the impacts of local public policies related to the sector.

A next generation of conditional cash transfer programs

This article evaluates the role of the Brazilian federal Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) such as Bolsa Família and Bolsa Escola during the past recent years and discusses their future. Based on previous empirical evidence based on my own work, I propose an integrated framework with two complementary perspectives. The first perspective is a goal approach based on the short term aggregated influences exerted by these programs, organized under four headings, namely: equality, prosperity, stability and sensibility. The emphasis here is to compare the results of Bolsa Família with other official programs such as BPC and Social Security benefits. The second perspective follows a means approach inspecting the microeconomic mechanisms through which CCTs operate, comparing the impacts on CCTs beneficiaries versus non-beneficiaries. Such perspective helps in dialoguing about the relevance of different CCTs attributes, and to discuss possible desirable upgrades.This article evaluates the role played by Brazilian federal conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) such as Bolsa Familia and Bolsa Escola during the recent years and discusses their future. Previous empirical evidence is organized, proposing an integrated framework with two complementary perspectives. The first perspective is a goal approach based on the short term aggregated influences exerted by these programs organized under four headings, namely: equality, prosperity, stability and sensibility. The emphasis here will be to compare the results of Bolsa Familia with other official programs such as BPC and Social Security benefits. The second perspective follows a means approach inspecting the microeconomic mechanisms through which CCTs operate comparing the impacts on CCTs beneficiaries versus non-beneficiaries. It is useful to consult the details of previous works on CCTs and to discuss possible desirable upgrades.