Brazil, like other natural resource-exporting countries, has benefited from a sharp increase in commodity prices over the last few years. To investigate the possible impact of terms-of-trade gains on the real economy, this paper estimates normalised quadratic input demand and output supply...

This paper uses a large dataset combining census, household survey and budgetary data for nearly 4.000 Brazilian municipalities to estimate the impact of government spending on education and health outcomes. We deal with the multi-dimensional nature of the population’s social status by...

This paper tests for the existence of a bank lending channel in the transmission of monetary policy in Brazil using monthly aggregate data for the period 1995:12 through 2008:6. The test is carried out in a VECM setting that allows for multiple cointegrating relationships among the variables of...

Brazil under-invested in infrastructure for over three decades, and infrastructure investment rates have come up only slowly since 2007. Infrastructure needs are sizeable in almost all sectors. It is likely that at its current stage of development the country will benefit from large pay-offs...

Taxes and transfers reduce inequality in disposable income relative to market income. The effect varies, however, across OECD countries. The redistributive impact of taxes and transfers depends on the size, mix and the progressivity of each component. Some countries with a relatively small tax...

Countries differ widely with respect to the level of labour income inequality among individuals of working age. Labour income inequality is shaped by differences in wage rates, hours worked and inactivity rates. Individual labour income inequality is the main driver of household market income...

Indonesia.s infrastructure is in poor shape, having suffered from protracted under-investment since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and constraints growth potential. This paper focuses on the current state of the regulatory framework and discusses different options for improvement...

Social institutions face many challenges. The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test as it has left a legacy of high unemployment and high government debt in many countries. It also lowered potential output and thus the revenue base for social protection schemes. At the same time,...

Despite the economic importance of the road transport sector, there is no systematic cross-country evidence on the sector’s efficiency. This paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing the social efficiency of the road transport sector, including non-market inputs – such as travel...

The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test for the vulnerability of social institutions. This paper assesses the vulnerability of social institutions in light of the current crisis, and surveys past episodes, when social institutions faced similar challenges. Public pay-as-you-go...