We examine how inequality measures, data sources, income brackets, ranking variables of tabulated tax data, underestimation of incomes in the bottom of the distribution and the methodology used to correct inequality affects the trends of inequality in total income among adults in Brazil between...

We consider a new method to estimate causal effects when a treated unit suffers a shock or an intervention, such as a policy change, but there is not a readily available control group or counterfactual. We propose a two-step approach where in the first stage an artificial counterfactual is...

In this paper, the relationship between macroeconomic fundamentals and asset prices is explored by estimating the impact of macroeconomic announcements in the Brazilian futures market. Using intraday data from October 2008 to January 2011, results show that external macroeconomic announcements...

We propose a methodology to conciliate the distributions of incomes of Census 2010 and of DIRPF 2010 (personal income tax reports). Applying this methodology, we decompose inequality by classes, regions and sex, race and age groups. We use annualized incomes and detailed educational information...

Nonlinear time series models, especially those with regime-switching and/or conditionally heteroskedastic errors, have become increasingly popular in the economics and finance literature. However, much of the research has concentrated on the empirical applications of various models, with little...

In Unconditional Convergence, Rodrik (2011b) documented that manufacturing industries exhibit unconditional convergence in labor productivity. We provide a novel semi-parametric specification for convergence equations and show that the speed of convergence varies systematically with...

Using retrospective simulations, we examine whether educational expansions in the past could have reduced earnings inequality and income poverty in Brazil. We use data from three censuses and 35 national household surveys (PNAD). The simulations indicate that there are important limitations to...