This article presents various econometric specifications - most notably Markov- Switching models - for the "fiscal reaction function" of the Brazilian consolidated public sector after the 1994 ?Real Plan?. The results reported here strongly suggest that a major structural break has happened in...

The objective of this paper is to estimate the length of poverty spells and its determinants. We analyze if short-term changes in the labor market affect the probability of staying in poverty. On the assumption that poverty transitions occur more frequently when we use a monthly data rather than...