This paper has as objective to present a practical method for building a composite economic activity index for local economies. As an example, the index was built using data for the city of Maringá-PR. In its development we employed factor analysis technique to find the principal components...

The objective of this paper is to develop a theoretical model that take into account the role of institutions in the Brazilian States and their impact on the education of the youth and on illiterate people. Here, the institutions mean educational policies, government efficiency, level of...

The objective of this paper is to show an alternative technique to smooth time series from Monte Carlo Simulations. The technique considers that time series can contain more than one structural break, coming from movements in coefficients of trend or from intercept. The Hodrick-Prescott Filter...