This paper attempts to evaluate public sector expenditure efficiency comparing Brazil with other Latin American countries for the period 1998-2002. We first computed a composite index, comprising economic and social indicators, to measure public sector performance. Efficiency of expenditure was...

This work is a compilation of studies produced at the Social Studies Department - Disoc/Ipea to support the elaboration of the document "Brazil: the state of the Union - 2007". Health outcomes in the last decades, health policies after 1988 and the role of the government in health care are...

This Discussion Paper deals with the institutional and economic aspects of the Brazilian federative state according to the 1988 Constitution. The context of vertical coordination of urban infrastructure investments is then examined. Previous studies have shown that the benefits of economic...

This Discussion Paper presents an introductory approach to presidential governance in Brazil. The historical institutionalism framework, the comparative historical method, and the policy-focused political analysis are used in this approach which consists in highlighting the critical component of...

The paper is an exploratory historical analysis, based on documentary research and literature review, which focuses on the formation of the bureaucratic apparatus in the area of economic infrastructure, analyzed from the perspective of the construction of the Brazilian State and its technical,...

This paper tries to build and to analyze the evolution of technological indexes in Brazilian chemical industry during the 1985-2009 period. Our main conclusions are the following: the petrochemical emphasis of this industry has stood by; besides there have been an important technological...

This paper tries to mesure the labour productivity in the Brazylian industry from 1990 until 2009. We do note consider the sectors one by one only, but their supply chains and intersectorial relationships. Besides, we mesure the evolution of labour productivity caused exclusively by...

In this article, we analyze the efficiency of Brazilian local legislative branches using the nonparametric estimator FDH (Free Disposal Hull). At the regional level, the results show high concentration of local legislative branches in the south. In addition, among the inefficient local...

Basic sanitation services have been undergoing substantial institutional change since the adoption of the new Brazilian National Sanitation Law, in 2007 (Federal Statute n. 11.445/2007, hereinafter LNSB [Lei Nacional de Saneamento Básico]), both as an industrial chain for the provision of...

This paper discusses the evolution of public employment data among different countries since the end of the nineteenth century and through the twentieth century, with special emphasis to the period after the Second World War (after 1945). The description of the international socio-economic...