We found that the driving force behind policies in Brazil is the strong set of powers given to the President by the Constitution of 1988. To have strong powers does not mean unbridled powers. Several institutions constrain and check the power of the President, in particular the legislature, the...

The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 gave relatively strong powers to the president. We model and test executive-legislative relations in Brazil and demonstrate that presidents have used pork as a political currency to exchange for votes on policy reforms. In particular Presidents Cardoso and Lula...

This paper provides new empirical results regarding the demand and supply of title, its impact on land value, and its effects on agricultural investment on Brazilian frontiers. We use survey data from 1992 and 1993 from the state of Par  with data on the characteristics of the settlers, land...