The present Report is motivated by the coming together o f three widespread perceptions about inequality, two somewhat newer and one long-standing. The two newer ones are; (i) that inequality may matter for the country's economic development, and (ii) that public policy can and should do...

Brazil was the fastest growing country in the world between 1930 and 1995, with an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent. By 2000, Brazil's per-capita income stood at R$6,500. While RN's per capita income is slightly above half the national average, it increased from 43 percent of the...

Although the State of Ceara, in Brazil, is a model of good economic, and fiscal performance given its poverty status, recent analysis show poverty remains severe, in spite of significant reductions over the last decade. The combination of good governance, and sound fiscal management, industrial...

Although the State of Ceara, in Brazil, is a model of good economic, and fiscal performance given its poverty status, recent analysis show poverty remains severe, in spite of significant reductions over the last decade. The combination of good governance, and sound fiscal management, industrial...

"This paper relaxes some key assumptions in the probabilistic approach to fiscal sustainability. First, the authors identify structural breaks over the sample period used to estimate the covariance matrix of the shocks to the debt ratios. Second, the assumption of normality of the shocks is...

"The authors describe the main trends of Brazil's fiscal policy during the past decade and analyze (1) the ability to raise the primary surplus in response to external shocks, (2) the pro-cyclical nature of fiscal policy, and (3) the long-run impact of government expenditure composition and...

"Despite significant progress in economic reform throughout the 1990s and an exemplary development of the policymaking framework in the second part of the decade, Brazil suffered a major public debt and currency crisis in 2002. Though the political origin of the uncertainty cannot be ignored,...