Local institutional and structural (meso) factors can play a role in mediating the returns to a macro-social policy. I focus on the Brazilian cash-transfer-programme Bolsa Familia and check how contextual features influence the returns to transfers. Building on Amartya Sen's work, I assess the...

Local institutional and structural (meso) factors can play a role in mediating the returns to a macro-social policy. I focus on the Brazilian cash-transfer-programme Bolsa Familia and check how contextual features influence the returns to transfers. Building on Amartya Sen's work, I assess the...

Are developing-world cities engines of opportunities for low-wage earners? In this study, we track a cohort of young low-income workers in Brazil for thirteen years to explore the contribution of factors such as industrial structure and skill segregation on upward income mobility. We find that...

The last two decades in Brazil are characterized by low growth in income per capita, financial turmoil, increasing unemployment, dismal distribution of income (and wealth), rent-seeking speculation and dissatisfaction with the outcome of neo-liberal policies. It was in this context that Luiz...

The recent literature has shown that income inequality is one of the main causes of borrowing and debt accumulation by working households. This paper explores the possibility that household indebtedness is an important cause of rising income inequality. If workers experience rising debt burdens,...

Schumepterian growth theory stresses the role of structural change in long run growth. Countries which increase the share of technology-intensive sectors in their economic structures benefit more from technological learning and innovation. In addition, they are more able to respond to changes in...

The purpose of this paper is to highlight a version of the Balassa-Samuelson effect for emerging countries with a new dataset. More than the catching-up effect, we will measure the convergence for three emerging countries: Brazil/China/India. We will compare the convergence between these...

This paper evaluates the alternation between catching up periods and falling behind periods in Brazilian economic history, with data from 1870 to 2016. This alternation expresses the middle income trap. A tentative theoretical framework is presented, suggesting a two-dimensional process, with...