Walter Belluzzo

Distribuição de Salários e o Diferencial Público-Privado no Brasil

The literature on wage gaps in Brazil consistently indicate a premium to the public sector when compared to the private sector. The purpose of this paper is complement the analysis presented in the literature with relevant information about other parts of the conditional distribution of wages. The characterization of the conditional distribution is obtained through the quantile regression methods. The results obtained reveal the public sector premium is larger in the lower tail of the wage distribution, declining steadily as we move towards the upper tail. The public sector advantage is reversed only in specific instances.

Child Health and Infant Mortality in Brazil

Child health is a central issue on the public policy agenda of developing countries. Several policies geared to improving child health have been implemented over the years, with varying degrees of success. In Brazil, such policies have led to a significant decline in infant mortality rates over the last 30 years. Despite this improvement, however, mortality rates are still high by international standards and there is substantial variation across Brazilian municipalities, which suggests that differentiated policies should be devised. The aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of infant mortality at the municipal level, and to provide a more detailed analysis by considering the factors that affect child health at the individual level. To analyze the mortality rate, static and dynamic panel data models are estimated using four censuses covering the period 1970-2000. The demand for child health is addressed through a household decision model, estimated using anthropometric data from the 1996 Standard of Living Survey. The results indicate that sanitation, education and per capita income contributed to the decline in infant mortality in Brazil, the effects being stronger in the long run than in the short run. The fixed effects associated with municipality characteristics help explain the observed dispersion in child mortality rates. The results of the decision model are in line with the mortality model findings: education, sanitation and poverty are the most important explanatory factors of poor child health in Brazil.

The effect of reducing the pre-harvest burning of sugar cane on respiratory health in Brazil

This paper analyzes the effect of reducing pre-harvest burning of sugar cane on the populations respiratory health in Brazil. We collected data for the municipalities in the state of Sao Paulo for two different periods: 2000, before the state law requiring the gradual elimination of sugar cane area utilizing pre-burning, and 2007. We used panel models for inpatient visits due to respiratory diseases, outpatient visits for inhalation procedures and length of stay for inpatient visits due to respiratory diseases, controlling for the endogeneity between health and pollution. The results show that increasing the area of raw sugar cane harvested reduces the number of inpatient visits and does not affect the number of inhalation procedures or length of stay.

Valuing water resources in developing countries: A semiparametric approach to valuation models

Valuation of the benefits from the preservation of water resources is often of interest to policy makers and funding institutions. In developing countries, valuation studies are potentially useful for designing funding policies when inequality is a concern. To fulfil this goal, however, valuation studies must provide detailed information about the whole distribution of benefits, not only its mean. This article applies semiparametric methods to acquire that information and presents their application to a valuation study involving an important Brazilian River basin. Results obtained suggest that the semiparametric model reveal a heterogeneity structure that cannot be accommodated by the logistic model. Specifically, it was found that the willingness-to-pay distribution is bimodal. As the logit places mass symmetrically, it tends to overestimate net benefits, leading to the undue acceptance of the project.

Contingent Valuation For Projects Of Water Resources Improvements

The use of the contingent valuation method (CVM) policy analysis has grown significantly in the last two decades, with applications to a variety of public goods. The primary purpose of this paper is to present an application of the CVM to the valuation of projects for the improvement of some important Brazilian river basin. This application is based on referendum questions in the so-called bidding games format. The use of this question format motivated the application of a bootstrap procedure to obtain standard errors of the parameters estimates and of the willingness to pay estimate. Additionally, basic issues concerning the design of CVM applications are discussed.