Otávio Figueiredo

The Brazilian soccer championship: an efficiency analysis.

This article analyses the top Brazilian football league from 2003 to 2011 by estimating a cost function and using a stochastic frontier model. Among the covariates, the number of fans per club and club remoteness is taken into account. The Brazilian clubs are then ranked according to their technical efficiency during the 2000–2011 period. Based on the results, the policy implication is presented, and the economic implications arising from the study are also considered.

Unveiling endogeneity and temporal dependence between tourism revenues/expenditures and macroeconomic variables in Brazil: A stochastic hidden Markov model approach

Thus far, a comprehensive analysis on the feedback processes that may exist between macroeconomic variables and tourism activity in Brazil is still missing. This article fills this literature gap by analyzing the endogenous and temporally dependent pattern between Brazilian monthly tourism revenue/expenditures and macroeconomic variables over 20 years. A novel stochastic hidden Markov model approach reveals the feedback processes that exist between them. While tourism revenues are autocorrelated and impacted by gross domestic product (GDP) growth, tourism expenditures are detached from any macroeconomic variable, but are rather directly dependent on tourism revenues past performance, which also exert an impact on exchange rates and GDP growth, thus indirectly benefiting tourism expenditures abroad. Policy implications in terms of a specific tourism exchange rate for Brazil are derived in order to sustain tourism expenditures apart from tourism revenue flows.

Working memory and left medial temporal cortical thickness

Objective To perform a pilot study to investigate the association between working memory and cortical thickness in a sample of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children. Methods Seventeen children aged 7-10 years diagnosed with ADHD and 16 healthy children underwent a magnetic resonance scan for cortical thickness measurements. Data was correlated with working memory performance using the Backwards Digit Span subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. Results Working memory impairment, evidenced by lower scores on the Backwards Digit Span, was observed in patients with ADHD compared to healthy controls. There was a direct correlation between working memory and cortical thickness of the left medial temporal lobe (Spearmans correlation coefficient: 0.499; p < 0.005). Conclusions Our data suggests, for the first time, a correlation between working memory, evaluated by the Backwards Digit Span, and left medial temporal cortical thickness.