Latin American Economics eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Analyzing the Dynamics of School Dropout in Upper Secondary Education in Latin America: A Cohort Approach","authors":"R. Kattan, M. Székely","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-7223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-7223","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines trends in school dropout at the upper secondary education level across Latin America over the past two decades, and attempts to identify factors influencing these rates. The methodology contributes to the existing literature by employing repeated cross sections of data to track the life cycle path of representative groups of individuals belonging to a birth cohort, by constructing and analyzing a synthetic data base of household survey data from 18 countries. A key finding is that while upper secondary enrollment rates increased in the region, the proportion of upper secondary age youth dropping out of school has remained persistently high, despite relatively favorable macroeconomic conditions. Furthermore, the study traces the moment in the life cycle at which the majority of dropout takes place to reveal differences between countries. Finally, to explain the trends in upper secondary dropout rates, the study examines the impact of three groups of factors: (i) shifts in the cohort size and socioeconomic composition of the population eligible for entering upper secondary education; (b) the macroeconomic environment and labor market opportunities; and (c) the returns to schooling. A series of regressions shows that an important factor that may be driving higher dropout levels has been the higher numbers of students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds reaching the upper secondary level. In addition, high returns to education have been a pull factor into the schooling system, while, especially in countries where the majority of youth dropout early (prior to upper secondary education), the data confirm an apparent substitution effect due to the opportunity cost of forgoing employment opportunities. Overall, the findings confirm the importance of policy makers' focus on upper secondary education across Latin America and suggest implications for focusing the policy agenda.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86109159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Macroeconomic and Financial Consequences of the Post-Crisis Government-Driven Credit Expansion in Brazil","authors":"Marco Bonomo, Ricardo Brito, B. Martins","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2581395","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2581395","url":null,"abstract":"Government-driven credit played an important role in countervailing the private credit crunch in Brazil during the recent financial crisis. However, government credit concessions continued to expand after the economy recovered. This paper investigates some important features of this expansion using a huge repository of loan contracts between banks and firms, composing an unbalanced panel of almost 1 million firms between 2004 and 2012. The results show that larger, older and less risky firms have benefited most from the government-sponsored credit expansion. Additionally, although higher access to earmarked credit tends to lead to higher leverage, the effect on investment appears to be insignificant for publicly traded firms. Since interest rates on earmarked loans are lower than market interest rates, firms with higher access to this type of loan tend to lower the cost of debt.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76262297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Explaining the 'Return of the State' in Middle-Income Countries: Employment Vulnerability, Income, and Preferences for Social Protection in Latin America","authors":"Matthew E. Carnes, Isabela Mares","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2567469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2567469","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades, developing and middle-income countries around the globe have adopted path-breaking reforms to their social protection systems. Among these countries, Latin America has been a pioneer, expanding the state’s commitment on behalf of low-income citizens in key policy areas. This paper undertakes two tasks. First, it documents the surprising extension of noncontributory social protection policies across many Latin American countries, highlighting how tax-financed programs have come to play a central role in a variety of settings. Second, it examines citizen-level preferences that support this trend, arguing that employment vulnerability and threats to income continuity play a decisive role in shaping demand for public, rather than private, social protection. Survey data on labor-market risks and social policy preferences from eighteen countries corroborates these claims. Our findings suggest that other countries undergoing labor-market strains may experience similar demands for a “return of the state” as a guarantor of social protection in the coming years.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80533549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trading Area: A Study in Corporate Banking Retailing in Brazil","authors":"João Carlos Baptista Sousa, Heitor Takashi Kato, T. Martins, June Alison Westarb Cruz","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2549892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2549892","url":null,"abstract":"Location is the most important factor in the success of a retailing store location. Now, modern technics using geographical data is being used to assess the potential of a site. One possibility is to study the trading area of a determined site to learn about the distance a store drawn the majority of its clients. The objective of this paper is to study the factors that affect the trading area of the branches of a corporate bank in the city of Curitiba, Brazil. The study used interviews and used a secondary data of the bank to compute de trade area of each branch. Using regression analysis, the study found that the number of the ATM and cashiers and the number os competitors branches in the 2 km radius of the branches were responsible to explain 30,8% of the trading area containing 60% of the clients of the branches.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78437726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Zombie-Like Persistence of Failed Local Neoliberalism: The Case of UNDP's Local Economic Development Agency (LEDA) Network in Latin America","authors":"M. Bateman","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2540301","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2540301","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the effectiveness of the Local Economic Development Agency (LEDA) model of institutional support for local economic development (LED), a model of LED that became very popular in the 1990’s as the neoliberal political project began its global ascendancy. The paper draws upon rich primary data from Latin America, and much secondary data from many other countries, to demonstrate that the LEDA model has been an almost wholly ineffective instrument through which to promote LED, if it has in fact not seriously compromised the LED operations of those communities in which has been established. The LEDA concept has almost no evidence to support the widespread claims that it has improved the LED function in developing countries. The next question then obviously begged is, Why then were so many international donor agencies, notably UNDP, willing to support the LEDA model, and for so long, if it was in fact a manifestly ineffective LED institution? The answer to this question, it is argued, is primarily to be found in the politics and ideology of the LEDAs, which reflect core neoliberal imperatives – that all development institutions must be private sector-led and financially self-sustainable. The manifestly ineffective LEDAs were therefore tolerated, and evidence of their ineffectiveness suppressed, because the LEDAs were the reflection of key neoliberal imperatives.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"65 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86263532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Top Incomes in Brazil, 1933-2012: A Research Note","authors":"P. Souza","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2537026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2537026","url":null,"abstract":"This research note presents estimates of top income shares for Brazil based on tax return data from 1933 to 2012, as well as a brief overview of personal income taxation in the country. I also discuss some of the major methodological challenges, especially pertaining to data availability, and contrast my preferred top incomes series with alternative possibilities as a robustness check. The main results do not suggest any clear-cut pattern towards rising or declining inequality over time. Income concentration at the top ebbs and flows at generally very high levels.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87040127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Brazil's Place in the Global Economy","authors":"Arturo C. Porzecanski","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2507930","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2507930","url":null,"abstract":"Brazil is a country with long-standing ambitions for a major role in the world economy and in global governance, but its footprint in various measures of both remains relatively modest. On current trends, the gap between ambition and achievement will likely remain large, so we provide a critique of Brazil’s strategy in terms of economic statecraft; reflect on the wisdom of choices made in the past in terms of multilateralism vs. regionalism; and suggest a new approach that could enhance Brazil’s leadership role at the regional and global levels. It would involve the Brazilian government and business elites making clearer and more daring national choices, including shedding increasingly arcane and detrimental strategic alliances, in order to enable the country to become more involved with and thus influential on the global economic stage.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"328 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91537410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Las Asociaciones Públicas Privadas: Retraso en la Entrega de Predios (Private Public Partnerships: Delayed Delivery of Farms)","authors":"Manuel Lama, T. Vargas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2962673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2962673","url":null,"abstract":"Spanish Abstrct: Este articulo abordara los problemas de liberalizacion de terrenos en el Peru, enfocado en la concesion de la Red Vial Nro.6 (concesion de carretera mediante una APP). Es evidente que los problemas de entrega de terrenos son originados desde el diseno del Contrato de Concesion debido a que el Gobierno del Peru, con el proposito de lograr el crecimiento de la inversion a traves de proyectos de infraestructura, ha generado politicas sin evaluar los estudios sobre las entregas de terrenos y su impacto en la ejecucion de obras. Asimismo, el actual marco legal de expropiacion en el Peru (que incluye el marco legal de liberalizacion de terrenos) no permite al gobierno administrar eficientemente la entrega de terrenos). Bajo este contexto, se observa recurrente incumplimientos de entrega de terrenos en los plazos originalmente pactado por las Partes en los proyectos de carreteras concesionadas, estos incumplimientos tiene el principal efecto de retraso de las oportunidades de inversion establecidas en los contratos de concesion causando retraso en los beneficios que los usuarios perciben sobre la ejecucion de cada Obra en terminos de dinero y tiempo por ejemplo (costo de viajes, accidentes costo operativo vehicular y otros). \u0000English Abstract: This article will address the problems of land liberalization in Peru, focused on the concession of Road Network No. 6 (road concession through a PPP). It is evident that the problems of land delivery originate from the design of the Concession Agreement because the Government of Peru, in order to achieve the growth of the investment through infrastructure projects, has generated policies without evaluating the studies On land deliveries and their impact on the execution of works. Likewise, the current legal framework for expropriation in Peru (which includes the legal framework for land liberalization) does not allow the government to manage land delivery efficiently. In this context, there is a recurrent lack of land delivery in the terms originally agreed upon by the Parties in the concessioned highway projects, these non-compliance has the main effect of delaying the investment opportunities established in the concession contracts, causing delays in Benefits that users perceive on the execution of each Work in terms of money and time for example (cost of travel, accidents vehicular operating cost and others).","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82467457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Law and Economics in the Civil Law World: The Case of Brazilian Courts","authors":"M. Pargendler, Bruno Meyerhof Salama","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2514577","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2514577","url":null,"abstract":"Conventional wisdom holds that economic analysis of law is either embryonic or nonexistent outside of the United States generally and in civil law jurisdictions in particular. Existing explanations for the assumed lack of interest in the application of economic reasoning to legal problems range from the different structure of legal education and academia outside of the United States to the peculiar characteristics of civilian legal systems. This paper challenges this view by documenting and explaining the growing use of economic reasoning by Brazilian courts. We argue that, given the ever-greater role of courts in the formulation of public policies, the application of legal principles and rules increasingly calls for a theory of human behavior (such as that provided by economics) to help foresee the likely aggregate consequences of different interpretations of the law. Consistent with the traditional role of civilian legal scholarship in providing guidance for the application of law by courts, the further development of law and economics in Brazil is therefore likely to be mostly driven by judicial demand.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"113 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84908406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Top Incomes in Brazil: Preliminary Results","authors":"P. Souza, M. Medeiros, F. Castro","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2511314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2511314","url":null,"abstract":"We present the preliminary results of our analysis of top incomes in Brazil from 2006 to 2012. We describe the evolution of the income shares of the top 1% and the top 5% and estimate a “tax-corrected†Gini coefficient. The data come from personal income tax returns, national accounts and household surveys. The results show that the levels of income inequality in Brazil are higher than those estimated using household surveys, and, contrary to what these surveys show, inequality did not fall over this period: the current trend is one of stability.","PeriodicalId":18190,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Economics eJournal","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73604088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}