The possibility that a country’s external current account may adjust nonlinearly to shocks is attracting increasing attention in the empirical literature. To shed further light on this issue in the context of emerging-market economies, this paper uses Brazilian data to estimate the...

The Indonesian labour market is characterised by widespread informality. To some extent, these outcomes can be attributed to a sharp increase in the real value of the minimum wage since 2001, when minimum-wage setting was decentralised to the provincial governments. To test this hypothesis, this...

This paper uses multiple cointegration analysis to estimate simultaneously a monetary reaction function and the determinants of expected inflation for Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. In addition, M-GARCH modeling is used to test for the presence of volatility spillovers between the monetary...

This paper uses several waves of the General Social Survey (GSS) including data for up to about 32,000 individuals to estimate the effect of a variety of health conditions on happiness. We show that healthy people are in general happier than individuals with poor health, controlling for a number...

This paper assesses the sustainability of global imbalances by testing for the presence of unit roots in the current account positions (measured in relation to GDP) of the United States, China, Japan, Germany and the oil-exporting countries using a methodology that allows for structural breaks...

The global crisis has left many G20 countries with an unenviable legacy of lower potential output and high government indebtedness. Global imbalances, which had narrowed during the recession, are now beginning to widen again, as the recovery takes hold. Structural reform will be needed not only...

This article reviews recent trends in fiscal performance in Brazil, estimates fiscal reaction functions for the consolidated public sector and different levels of government, and tests for the sustainability of the public debt dynamics. The empirical analysis, based on monthly data for the...

This paper assesses changes in the size and scope of government in 24 transition economies. While these governments have reduced public expenditures in relation to GDP, and public employment as a share of population, some indicators suggest that the size remains high (eg, rising indebtedness, a...

This paper uses a large dataset combining census, household survey and budgetary data for nearly 4.000 Brazilian municipalities to estimate the impact of government spending on education and health outcomes. We deal with the multi-dimensional nature of the population’s social status by...

This paper tests for the existence of a bank lending channel in the transmission of monetary policy in Brazil using monthly aggregate data for the period 1995:12 through 2008:6. The test is carried out in a VECM setting that allows for multiple cointegrating relationships among the variables of...