We measure the competitive effect of public banks in concentrated local

markets in Brazil using branch location patterns. We employ variation in

market size, number, and identity of competitors to determine how the

conduct of private banks is affected by the entry of a public bank. We find

that the market size needed to sustain a private bank branch is 35% larger if a

private competitor is present and is not significantly affected by the presence

of a public bank. These results suggest that the presence of a public bank

does not affect conduct of private banks

This paper shows that the contractual arrangement of ‘banking correspondents’ has eliminated entry barriers for the provision of banking services in Brazil. With the bank correspondents, banks are allowed to reach the almost 2200 municipalities without bank branches in 2000, connecting 45 million people to the financial sector. The evidence is based on the estimation of an entry model of financial providers in Brazilian municipalities. I estimate a zero population entry threshold for banking correspondents for the period from 2002 to 2007. The estimated population entry thresholds for bank branches in the same period are relatively stable at approximately 8000–9000 people. The population entry thresholds for the second to fifth players for banking correspondents are also consistently lower than those for bank branches.

We derive asymptotic properties of the quasi-maximum likelihood estimator of smooth transition regressions when time is the transition variable. The consistency of the estimator and its asymptotic distribution are examined. It is shown that the estimator converges at the usual -rate and has an asymptotically normal distribution. Finite sample properties of the estimator are explored in simulations. We illustrate with an application to US inflation and output data.

We use various secondary historical sources to compile a database containing information on the number of African slaves received by each destination country between the 16th and 19th centuries. We then construct a measure of intensity of African slavery use based on the flow of slaves received divided by historical populations. We also construct a proxy for the use of native slavery. The slavery variables are highly correlated with current levels of inequality. The correlation between our slavery use variables and inequality is stronger than that observed between inequality and development, geographic characteristics, institutional quality, and provision of public goods. The evidence suggests that use of slavery in the historical past may be an important determinant of the levels of inequality observed today across the globe.

In December 2003, the Brazilian Congress passed a law that led to a natural personal lending experiment. The law allows banks to offer loans with repayment through automatic payroll deduction, which, in effect, turns future income into collateral. We estimate the impact of the new law using auto loans as a control group. The law has caused a reduction in interest rates and an increase in the volume of personal credit

This paper evaluates the impact of a program of bureaucracy simplification and tax reduction on formality among Brazilian microenterprises — the SIMPLES program. We document an increase of 13 percentage points in formal licensing among retail firms created after the program when compared to firms in ineligible sectors. The impact on retailers is robust to a series of tests. We find no impact on construction, transportation, services and manufacturing sectors.

In this paper, we propose a long memory asymmetric volatility model, which captures more flexible asymmetric patterns as compared with several existing models. We extend the new specification to realized volatility (RV) by taking account of measurement errors and use the Efficient Importance Sampling technique to estimate the model. We apply the model to the RV of S&P500. Overall, the results of the out-of-sample forecasts show the adequacy of the new asymmetric and long memory volatility model for the period including the global financial crisis.

This paper examines if money matters in education by looking at whether missing resources due to corruption affect student outcomes. We use data from the auditing of Brazil's local governments to construct objective measures of corruption involving educational block grants transferred from the central government to municipalities. Using variation in the incidence of corruption across municipalities and controlling for student, school, and municipal characteristics, we find a significant negative association between corruption and the school performance of primary school students. Students residing in municipalities where corruption in education was detected score 0.35 standard deviations less on standardized tests, and have significantly higher dropout and failure rates. Using a rich dataset of school infrastructure and teacher and principal questionnaires, we also find that school inputs such as computer labs, teaching supplies, and teacher training are reduced in the presence of corruption. Overall, our findings suggest that in environments where basic schooling resources are lacking, money does matter for student achievement.

This article analyzes the determinants of local institutions in Brazil. We show

that institutional quality and distribution of land are partly inherited from the

colonial histories experienced by different areas of the country. The sugar cane

boom—characterized by an oligarchic society—is associated with more land

inequality. The gold boom—characterized by a heavily inefficient presence of

the Portuguese state—is associated with worse governance and access to justice.

We do not find similar effects for a postcolonial boom (coffee). We also find

that the colonial episodes are correlated with lower provision of public goods

What are the costs and benefits of mandatory dividend rules? On the one hand, they make it harder for controlling shareholders to divert corporate assets. On the other hand, they reduce the internal funds available for firms to invest, possibly leading to the loss of valuable projects. To assess this trade-off, we look at investment and dividend decisions in a sample of public firms in Brazil. We show that a significant fraction of these firms use loopholes of Brazil's mandatory dividend rules to avoid paying dividends. And yet, the dividend rules are effective. They help explain why the average dividend yield in Brazil is higher than in the U.S., without making it harder for firms to invest.

This paper investigates to what extent the persistence of Microsoft Windows in the market for server operating systems is due to lock-in or unobserved preferences. While the hypothesis of lock-in plays an important role in the antitrust policy debate for the operating systems market, it has not been extensively documented empirically. To account for unobserved preferences, we use a panel data identification approach based on time-variant group fixed effects, and estimate the dynamic discrete choice panel data model developed by Arellano and Carrasco (2003). Using detailed establishment-level data, we find that once we account for unobserved preferences, the estimated magnitudes of lock-in are considerably smaller than those from the conventional approaches, suggesting that unobserved preferences play a major role in the persistence of Windows. Further robustness checks are consistent with our findings.

Since the conquest of hyperinflation, with the Real Plan, in 1994, the Brazilian financial system has grown from early infancy to late adolescence. We describe the process of maturing with emphasis on the defining features of the Brazilian financial system over the last 20 years: (1) stabilization and the subsequent financial crisis; (2) universality of banks; (3) market segmentation through public lending; (4) institutional improvement. Further paraphrasing Diaz-Alejandro (1985), we raise some hypotheses on why, this time, the financial boom has not (at least yet) turned into a financial crash.

This paper argues that conflicting results from previous literature—related

to the effect of economic conditions on child labor—derive from different

income and substitution effects implicit in different types of income variation.

We use agricultural shocks to local economic activity in Brazil (coffee

production) to distinguish between increases in household income and increases

in the opportunity cost of time. Results show that higher household

wealth is associated with lower child labor and higher schooling. Nevertheless,

temporary increases in local economic activity are associated with

higher child labor and lower schooling, particularly for children with poor

economic backgrounds.

In this paper we introduce a linear programming estimator (LPE) for the slope parameter in a constrained linear regression model with a single regressor. The LPE is interesting because it can be superconsistent in the presence of an endogenous regressor and, hence, preferable to the ordinary least squares estimator (LSE). Two different cases are considered as we investigate the statistical properties of the LPE. In the first case, the regressor is assumed to be fixed in repeated samples. In the second, the regressor is stochastic and potentially endogenous. For both cases the strong consistency and exact finite-sample distribution of the LPE is established. Conditions under which the LPE is consistent in the presence of serially correlated, heteroskedastic errors are also given. Finally, we describe how the LPE can be extended to the case with multiple regressors and conjecture that the extended estimator is consistent under conditions analogous to the ones given herein. Finite-sample properties of the LPE and extended LPE in comparison to the LSE and instrumental variable estimator (IVE) are investigated in a simulation study. One advantage of the LPE is that it does not require an instrument.

Most models of optimalincometaxenforcement assume that income is either random or solely remunerates labor, neglecting that auditing strategies may depend on observable inputs. This paper outlines a model to optimally monitor self-employed entrepreneurs when, in addition to reported profits, the taxcollection agency also observes the number of workers employed (or any other input variable) at each firm. We show that, by conditioning the monitoring strategy only on labor input, it is optimal for the IRS to audit firms in a way that generates some empirical regularities, like the missing middle. We also show that theoptimal direct mechanism can be implemented by an indirect monitoring strategy that is consistent with actual IRS practices. In particular, the IRS calculates inputted income as function of labor. Whenever an entrepreneur reports profits that are lower than inputted income, she is randomly monitored. Finally, we formalize a model of optimal presumption taxation, in which inputted income is the tax base, to compare revenue collection across tax systems.

Nonlinear regressionmodels have been widely used in practice for a variety of time series and cross-section datasets. For purposes of analyzing univariate and multivariate time series data, in particular,smoothtransitionregression (STR) models have been shown to be very useful for representing and capturing asymmetric behavior. Most STR models have been applied to univariate processes, and have made a variety of assumptions, including stationary or cointegrated processes, uncorrelated, homoskedastic or conditionally heteroskedastic errors, and weakly exogenous regressors. Under the assumption of exogeneity, the standard method of estimation is nonlinear least squares. The primary purpose of this paper is to relax the assumption of weakly exogenous regressors and to discussmoment-based methods for estimating STR models. The paper analyzes the properties of the STR modelwith endogenousvariables by providing a diagnostic test of linearity of the underlying process under endogeneity, developing an estimation procedure and a misspecification test for the STR model, presenting the results of Monte Carlo simulations to show the usefulness of the model and estimation method, and providing an empirical application for inflation rate targeting in Brazil. We show that STR models withendogenousvariables can be specified and estimated by a straightforward application of existing results in the literature.

In this paper we propose a smooth transition tree model for both the conditional mean and variance of the short-term interest rate process. The estimation of such models is addressed and the asymptotic properties of the quasi-maximum likelihood estimator are derived. Model specification is also discussed. When the model is applied to the US short-term interest rate we find: (1) leading indicators for inflation and real activity are the most relevant predictors in characterizing the multiple regimes' structure; (2) the optimal model has three limiting regimes. Moreover, we provide empirical evidence of the power of the model in forecasting the first two conditional moments when it is used in connection with bootstrap aggregation (bagging). Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.