Equality of opportunity is about leveling the playing field so that circumstances such as gender, ethnicity, place of birth, or family background do not influence a person's life chances. Success in life should depend on people's choices, effort and talents, not to their circumstances at birth....

This book addresses questions of international trade policy and the relationship between growth, distribution, and human resource development in the Latin American region.Abstract: Este libro presenta un análisis de cuestiones sobre comercio internacional y la relación entre crecimiento,...

The objective of this paper is to identify whether the prevailing Brazilian labor market regulations, largely the result of the 1988 constitutional change, have any impact on labor market performance. To reach this objective the authors explore alternative methodologies, sources of information...

In the recent study, we attempt to contribute to clarify the discussion of targeting and universalization by analyzing fundamental theoretical, ethical, analytical, and empirical concepts involved. We believe that by precisely defining these concepts we may also contribute to the development of...

Over the past seventeen years the Brazilian macroeconomic performance has been considerably weaker than in previous decades. Inflation reached unprecedented levels and economic growth declined considerably. Despite the overall perception that macroeconomic performance is closely related to...

The objective of the paper is to estimate the impact of an increase of dismissal penalties, implemented by the 1988 Brazilian constitution, on the duration of employment spells. After a simple comparison of estimates of this variable in periods pre and post 1988 we made use of two alternative...

This paper investigates if the responsibility of the poverty level registered in Brazil is the poor operation of the labor market, in terms of underremuneration and underutilization of the labor factor. By means of a microsimulation based decomposition of distributional changes we assess the...

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of the 1988 changes in labor market regulations on the level of employment and on the time required by firms to adjust their employment level to economic fluctuations. From the many aspects of labor market regulations, this study will...

Recent changes in public employment in Brazil generate costs to workers that leave this sector. In this study we investigate the wage loss that leaving public employees may experience if they were absorbed by the private sector. Using microdata from the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de...

In this study we present evidence of the impact of demographic factors on the level of poverty based on the Brazilian experience. Two demographic factors were investigated: a) the size and b) the age composition of the population. The goal was to estimate through the micro-simulation approach...