Data for the year 1980 reveal seller concentration to be high for domestic sales and exports, but large sellers in the domestic market often fail to rank among the largest exporters. Foreign-owned firms and joint ventures account for more than a quarter of sales in the domestic market and more...

The provision of foreign exchange liquidity by emerging market central banks during the global shock of 2008-09 departs from the domestic liquidity lender of last resort role described by Bagehot in his classic "Lombard Street." This paper documents and analyzes the foreign exchange liquidity...

We exploit a discontinuity in Brazilian municipal election rules to investigate whether political competition has a causal impact on policy choices. In municipalities with less than 200,000 voters mayors are elected with a plurality of the vote. In municipalities with more than 200,000 voters a...

This paper examines a much overlooked link between credit markets and formalization: Since access to bank credit typically requires compliance with tax and employment legislation, firms are more likely to incur such formalization costs once bank credit is more widely available at lower cost; if...

We use variation in oil output among Brazilian municipalities to investigate the effects of resource windfalls. We find muted effects of oil through market channels: offshore oil has no effect on municipal non-oil GDP or its composition, while onshore oil has only modest effects on non-oil GDP...

This paper employs regression discontinuity methods to identify the effect of formality on Brazilian micro-firm performance. The SIMPLES program introduced in November 1996 consolidated multiple taxes and social security contributions into a single payment and reduced taxes for eligible small...

During a financial crisis, the loss of access to world capital markets may force heavily indebted countries to accelerate their production of exhaustible resources. Few studies consider the impact that financial crises have on real behavior, and no existing studies appear to consider the impact...

In the last few years there has been an explosion in the number of papers that aim to explain what determines country risk (defined as the difference between the yield of a sovereign's bonds and the risk free rate). In this paper, we contribute to the discussion using by showing that Brazilian...

We present a conceptual framework to better understand the interaction between settlement and the emergence of de facto property rights on frontiers prior to governments establishing and enforcing de jure property rights. In this framework, potential rents associated with more exclusivity drives...

What factors shape decentralization processes in Latin American federations? This work reviews and statistically analyzes current approaches on the topic, questions some claims of generality in their theoretical frameworks, and presents an argument to explain variation in decentralization...