This paper finds that per capita municipal spending on public services is strongly and non-linearly correlated to urban population density. Optimal expenditure levels for municipal services are achieved when densities are close to 9,000 residents per square kilometer. In this study of...

In recent decades, a significant number of developing countries have implemented fiscal incentives programs for the tourism industry as part of their regional development policies. The main objective of these programs is to increase local investment and employment, as tourism activities are...

This paper studies the first large scale effort by the Brazilian government to increase the social security compliance of self-employed workers using behavioral interventions. In 2014, the Brazilian Ministry of Social Security gradually delivered by postal mail a booklet reminding nearly 3...

Trade liberalization affects real-wage inequality through two channels: the distribution of nominal wages across workers and, if the rich and the poor consume different bundles of goods, the distribution of price indices across consumers. I provide a unified framework incorporating both channels...

This paper explores for the first time the impact of a demand-driven training program on labor turnover at both firm and worker level. Launched in 2014 by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade (MDIC in Portuguese), Pronatec-MDIC allows firms to demand courses which some of their...

This paper presents and comparatively analyzes three case studies of productive development agencies (PDAs) in Brazil: Embrapa, Finep, and ABC Foundation. Following a discussion of the main hypotheses and the methodology employed, the paper describes each case, the related counterfactual and an...

The Gini coefficient of labor earnings in Brazil fell by nearly a fifth between 1995 and 2012, from 0.50 to 0.41. The decline in earnings inequality was even larger by other measures, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Although the conventional explanation of a falling...

The aim of the paper, based on empirical research in Brazil, is to investigate how supply chains have evolved over time, what factors have driven this evolution and also how a specific set of contractual practices along these chains is linked to access to international markets. The two selected...

This paper attempts to identify the climatic effect on birth outcomes in Brazil and, thus, to predict the potential impact of climate change. Panel data models indicate that excess and lack of rainfall have the most important harmful effects on newborns' health; temperature stresses and low...