Ricardo Paes de Barros

Measuring inequality of opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean

Over the past decade, faster growth and smarter social policy have reversed the trend in Latin Americas poverty. Too slowly and insufficiently, but undeniably, the percentage of Latinos who are poor has at long last begun to fall. This has shifted the political and policy debates from poverty toward inequality, something to be expected in a region that exhibits the worlds most regressive distribution of development outcomes such as income, land ownership, and educational achievement. This book is a breakthrough in the measurement of human opportunity. It builds sophisticated formulas to answer a rather simple question: how much influence do personal circumstances have on the access that children get to the basic services that are necessary for a productive life? Needless to say, producing a methodology to measure human opportunity, and applying it across countries in one region, is just a first step. On the one hand, technical discussions and scientific vetting will continue, and refinements will surely follow. On the other, applying the new tool to a single country will allow for adjustments that make the findings much more useful to its policy realities. And fascinating comparative lessons could be learned by measuring human opportunity in developed countries across, say, the states of the United States or the nations of Europe. But the main message this book delivers remains a powerful one: it is possible to make equity a central purpose, if not the very definition, of development. That is, perhaps, its most important contribution.

The effects of conditional cash transfer programmes on adult labour supply: an empirical analysis using a time-series-cross-section sample of brazilian municipalities

In this paper, we estimate the effects of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programmes in Brazil on the labour supply of adult males and females. We employ the panel of municipalities that are continuously investigated by the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios (PNAD/IBGE) over the years 2001-2005. The effects of the Brazilian CCT programmes are estimated both on the participation rate and the mean number of hours worked. Since PNAD does not ask directly surveyed families about CCT programme participation, we use an indirect procedure to identify beneficiary families. Our results indicate that the effects of interest are not significant both on statistical grounds and in terms of magnitude.

The public-private wage gap in Brazil

Recent changes in public employment in Brazil generate costs to workers that leave this sector. In this study we investigate the wage loss that leaving public employees may experience if they were absorbed by the private sector. Using microdata from the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios of 1995, we calculate the gross and controlled wage gaps between the two sectors. The results show that both wage gaps are relatively high, although significantly lower for the second measure. The latter indicates the presence of important differences in the composition of the labor force between the two sectors. In fact, public employees tend to be on average better educated, older and have longer tenure than the workers in the private sector. Also, the study shows that there is a significant heterogeneity within the public sector: the wage gap is higher for federal public employees, decreasing for the state and municipal levels. As mudancas que vem ocorrendo no emprego publico no Brasil acarretam diversos custos para os trabalhadores que saem desse setor. Neste trabalho investigamos a magnitude da perda salarial que os trabalhadores realocados do setor publico para o privado podem experimentar. Utilizando os microdados da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios (PNAD) de 1995, calculamos os hiatos salariais bruto e controlado entre esses setores. Os resultados obtidos mostram que esses hiatos salariais sao relativamente altos, embora significativamente menores quando utilizamos a segunda medida. Essa ultima constatacao indica a existencia de diferencas na composicao da forca de trabalho entre os dois setores. De fato, os trabalhadores empregados no setor publico tendem a ser em media mais escolarizados, mais velhos e possuir maior tempo de experiencia no trabalho do que os trabalhadores empregados no setor privado. Outra constatacao importante e a presenca de uma significativa heterogeneidade dentro do setor publico: o hiato salarial e maior para os empregados na esfera federal, decrescendo para os niveis estadual e municipal.

Labor Market Regulations and the Duration of Employment in Brazil

The objective of the paper is to estimate the impact of an increase of dismissal penalties, implemented by the 1988 Brazilian constitution, on the duration of employment spells. After a simple comparison of estimates of this variable in periods pre and post 1988 we made use of two alternative methods to estimate the impact we are looking for. The first method use control groups in order to separate the impact of underlying changes in the macroeconomic environment from the impact of the constitutional change. Accordingly, we proceed by breaking down the overall population into two groups, the so-called the treatment and control groups and then apply what is known as differences-in-differences methodology. The second method would essentially consist of regressing monthly or yearly estimates for the duration of employment spells on an indicator for the constitutional change, controlling for a set of macroeconomic indicators. The estimated coefficient on this indicator would then be an estimate of the impact of the constitutional change on the hazard rate. This procedure also allow us to test the validity of all control groups on which we base part of our empirical analysis. O objetivo deste trabalho e estimar o impacto do aumento do valor das multas pagas aos trabalhadores demitidos na duracao do emprego. Este valor foi bastante elevado pela Constituicao de 1988. Alem de uma simples comparacao da duracao em periodos anteriores e posteriores a Constituicao, sao implementadas duas alternativas para estimar o impacto mencionado. A primeira faz uso de um metodo quase-experimental que permite isolar o impacto da regulacao do impacto oriundo das transformacoes macroeconomicas experimentadas pelo Brasil. Este metodo se baseia em uma divisao da populacao em dois grupos denominados controle (nao afetado pela regulacao) e tratamento. O contraste entre a evolucao dos dois grupos nos fornece uma estimativa do impacto da regulacao. A segunda alternativa se baseia em regressoes envolvendo estimativas da duracao de emprego bem como um indicador da mudanca constitucional controlando por uma serie de indicadores macroeconomicos. O coeficiente associado ao indicador da constituicao e tomado como uma estimativa do impacto da regulacao. Este procedimento tambem permite checar se os grupos usados como controle atendem os requisitos necessarios para desempenhar este papel.

A Absorção de Mão-de-Obra no Setor de Serviços

The article investigates the role the service sector played in job creation in Brazil during the 1977-90. Special attention is focused on what are known as personal services (community services, repairs, food and lodging, cleaning, and household services), which are considered the least attractive in terms of job quality. Firstly, results show that the proportion of the work force employed within the service sector was similar to that employed by the manufacturing and civil construction sectors together. Secondly, the number of jobs in personal services grew in both absolute and relative terms, surpassing rates for the other two sectors, while in relation to other service sectors, personal services displayed lower rates in both absolute and relative terms. Lastly, the personal services sector enjoyed systematic expansion within the urban labor market, while its participation within the service sector overall declined slightly

Determinants of the Educational Performance in Brazil

Despite the high estimated returns to schooling, the Brazilian educational indicators have been below international standards over the years. Worse, the poorer the family the lower human capital investment is. Since the individual probability of being poor is strongly determined by the educational level, there exists a process of intergenerational transmission of poverty. The main goal of this article is to investigate the determinants of the weak educational performance in Brazil. The analysis focus on 11-to-25-year-old individuals, living in urban areas of the Northeast and Southeast regions. Four individual educational level determinants are investigated: the availability and quality of the educational services, the attractiveness of the labor market, the availability of family resources (financial and non-financial), and the amount of resources in the community where the individual lives. Similar to previous works, family attributes appear to be the most important. Furthermore, the results suggest that attractive labor markets are related to lower levels of schooling.