Using the tools of Welfare Economics, the study estimates states' weights in the social welfare function of contemporary Brazil. Based on PNAD 2009 microdata, two methods of calculating the weights were applied: the Equally Distributed Equivalent Income (EDEI) and the average marginal utilities...

Milanovic, Lindert and Williamson (2007) introduced the concept of the inequality possibility frontier. Their starting point is that very poor societies will never display high Gini indexes of personal distribution of income because there is very little surplus to be appropriated by the upper...

This paper investigates the relative impact of microeconomic agglomeration mechanisms on plant's total factor productivity (TFP) using German establishment and employment level data. Contrasting different strategies to estimate TFP from plant level production functions reveals that not...

The paper examines the evolution of the thesis which states that the type of colonization determines, or conditions, the future of societies. Adam Smith already presented this proposition and a typology of colonies. However, it were the German authors Heeren and Roscher, in the 19th century, who...

This paper analyses employment transitions and workers' skills in Brazil using a random sample from the universe of formal labour contracts covering the period from 2003 to 2018. We develop a novel procedure to derive a measure of occupational distance and internationally comparable skill...

This paper distinguishes how the source of lending affects gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Brazilian municipalities between 2007 and 2016. A unique data set allows us to discriminate between the effects of lending operated by either private or public commercial banks, and loans...

This paper analyzes assortative matching between employers and employees and its interrelations with the employment density of local labor markets in Germany. I devote attention to the identiication of accurate quality measures: plants' total factor productivity and workers' fixed effect. Two...

This paper studies the effect of an expansion of imported intermediate inputs on establishments' average task intensities and employment size in a middle-income country. I use confidential matched employer-employee data and information on trade transactions for the universe of Brazilian firms....

The present paper applies several regression-based decomposition methods to analyze the impact of region-, worker-, irm- and sector-speciic determinants on the wage level and the continuous increase in wage inequality between 1995 and 2007 in Germany. In contrast to prior studies, more than 50%...