Paulo Picchetti

Rising human capital but constant inequality: the education composition effect in Brazil

Este artigo examina o impacto da composicao educacional da forca de trabalho e dos retornos a educacao sobre a dispersao dos salarios dos homens no Brasil nos ultimos 20 anos. Ele aplica uma regressao quantilica sobre um polinomio de idade, tendencia e interacoes usando dados das PNADs entre 1977 e 1997. Os resultados indicam que o aumento da escolaridade da populacao brasileira ainda nao provocou uma queda da desigualdade porque as mudancas na composicao educacional contribuiram para um aumento da desigualdade. As simulacoes indicam que o efeito de composicao vai contribuir para uma queda substancial da desigualdade no futuro proximo.

Fiscal adjustment in Brazil

Two questions are addressed in this paper. The first one is the determination of periods of fiscal consolidation and fiscal stimulus. The second one is the importance of the composition of fiscal adjustments for their success, defined as a declining debt to GDP ratio. We, characterize 1994 and 1999 as points of fiscal consolidation. The 1994 consolidation can not be considered successful since after that period the debt to GDP ratio has grown continuously. The adjustment can be characterized as a type 2 adjustment (Alesina and Perotti (1997)) in the sense that cuts were made mainly in public investment, while government wages and transfers remained almost unchanged. This type of adjustment usually has a low likelihood of being a success.

Estimating and interpreting a common stochastic component for the Brazilian industrial production index

This paper employs a state-space formulation to model a common stochastic component in four different series that constitute the aggregate index of industrial production in Brazil. This estimated common component is then interpreted as a measurement of behavior of fundamentals in the brazilian economy and compared to the actual aggregate index.

Adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean: Examining Time Allocation Decisions with Cross-Country Data

This paper uses micro data from a collection of household surveys conducted in 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to examine the time allocation decisions of adolescents. We find that an econometric model with household and country-level variables, when applied simultaneously to all the countries in the sample, is able to predict quite well the choices among school, work, both or neither in most of the countries. Moreover, the household variables alone, especially parental education, go a long way towards predicting the rates of school attendance, which means that the stage of development, as measured by per capita GDP for example, impacts human capital accumulation mainly through the households’characteristics.

An Econometric Analysis of Strike Activity in the Brazilian Industrial Sector

A data set on strike activity for Brazil during the period between 1983 and 1993 is used to produce results based on statistical methods of frequency and duration analysis. The obtained results of frequency and duration of strikes, including their relationships with some macroeconomic variables, are compared with ones from similar studies using data from the USA and Canada. The comparison shows that there seems to be a common pattern of results in these countries. An explanation for the observed features of these patterns is then sought in the context of game-theoretic models of bargaining, and suggestions for future research in the area are given.